Library Chairman: Renovation Budget Still A Work in Progress

The budget plan for the New York Public Library’s renovation project is preliminary and imprecise at this point, Neil L. Rudenstine, the library’s chairman, acknowledged in a letter this month to trustees that was obtained by The New York Times.

The cost projections have been one focus of the debate over the project, with critics calling for more financial detail beyond the current estimate of $300 million. The library has suggested that the plan would produce $15 million in savings a year, allowing the library to extend hours, acquire more books and hire more librarians system-wide.

Mr. Rudenstine sent his letter in response to architecture critic Michael Kimmelman’s recent critique in The Times of the library’s plan to bring a circulating library into its Fifth Avenue flagship building.

“Kimmelman suggests that we hire an outside cot-estimator to offer an analysis of the budget-projections,” Mr. Rudenstine writes. “This is not difficult to do, but we all know that we are some considerable distance from having the kind of detailed plan that an estimator could rely on. Our own budget estimates are reasonable, but even they cannot be refined with any precision at this stage.”

The renovation would bring into the Fifth Avenue building the operations of the Mid-Manhattan circulating library across the street and the Science, Industry and Business Library, on Madison Avenue at 34th Street. With a design by the British architect Norman Foster, this new circulating library would be housed in what is currently the stacks at the back of the building facing Bryant Park.

Mr. Kimmelman and other critics have called for more specific cost projections and questioned the city’s decision to commit $! 150 million in public funds for the project. They have also suggested that it could make more sense - and cost less - to renovate Mid-Manhattan or cultivate neighborhood branches instead.

Marshall Rose, a trustee and the chairman emeritus, said the library has a 30-year history of renovation projects that have come in “substantially” on budget. “The library has been very prudent,” he said.