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West Ridge Library Meeting With Designers, CHA Monday At Warren Park

By Linze Rice | April 28, 2017 5:58am
 Perkins and Will were selected to lead the design on the new West Ridge library.
Perkins and Will were selected to lead the design on the new West Ridge library.
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WEST RIDGE — Architects and city officials are set to meet Monday in West Ridge to discuss a new senior housing/library complex coming to the neighborhood. 

At 6:30 p.m., Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th) and representatives from the Chicago Housing Authority, Chicago Public Library and designers from Perkins and Will will meet with residents at Warren Park, 6601 N. Western Ave., to discuss feedback and design of the new structure. 

The housing and library building will include parking and be built at 6800 N. Western Ave., the corner of Western and Pratt. 

In March, the same group of officials and architects met with residents to garner feedback and ask questions. 

LEARN West Rogers Park — a group of local organizations that have long pushed for a new library that includes Devon Bank, Friends of Northtown Library, Indo-American Center, Jewish Community Council of West Rogers Park and the Rogers Park/West Ridge Historical Society — earlier circulated an online survey for residents and other groups to gauge interest in the structure's design, the library's programming, hours, parking and more.

Silverstein also distributed a survey.

The alderman's survey revealed that 40 percent of respondents were 16 or younger, 37 percent were 50 or older, 21 percent were between ages 26 to 49 and only 2 percent of people 16 to 25 took the survey. 

Thirty-six percent of those users said they didn't use the neighborhood's current Northtown Library, while about a third said they did, and a third said they used another branch outside of West Ridge.

Only 23 percent said they visit the current neighborhood library on a weekly or monthly basis.

Among features respondents asked for were outdoor space, technology and computers, a coffee bar, citizenship and language classes, and diverse artwork. 

Those results were passed on to designers, Silverstein said.

Construction is slated to begin by the end of the year and wrap up in late 2018 or early 2019.