County Approves Design Costs for New Library

Los Angeles County made its first financial commitment to a new library in Diamond Bar last week with a unanmimous vote to fund design costs for the project.

The county vote will reimburse Diamond Bar for a $330,000 library design contract it entered with the Irvine-based architecture firm LPA, Inc., which is also working on designs for a new Diamond Bar City Hall to be located in the same building as the library.

The County Board of Supervisors approved a total $550,000 for architectural design services, though Diamond Bar Assistant City Manager David Doyle said he expects the final cost to be no more than $360,000.

The city of Diamond Bar has already made progress on designs for the library alongside designs for a new city hall that will open its doors by the end of this year at 21810 Copley Drive.

Plans for the new library come in at double the area of the — 22,000 square feet to the current library's 9,000 — and would have six times the amount of parking, with 200 parking spots over the current location's 32.

, Assistant City Manager David Doyle said that the city will begin to make cost estimates for the project after completing designs and will continue to pursue a working agreement with the county to determine how costs for maintenance and utilities would be divided.

Doyle said he expects that the city will assume any costs for utilities and brick and mortar maintenance as the city is the owner of the building.

That cost, Doyle said, would "conceptually" balance out added staffing costs to the county for maintaining a library twice the size of the current facility.

Doyle said that the city will hope to get full approval of the county for cost estimates for the library "maybe by early April," Doyle said, "maybe at a location where they may be pouring some wine," alluding to the .