Even as demonstrators were outside the New York Public Library’s flagship Fifth Avenue building on Wednesday, protesting the library’s renovation plans, the library’s trustees were inside deciding to make the first public expenditure on that plan: $9 million for the project’s architect, Norman Foster.
The allocation is the first part of $150 million in financing that New York City has committed to the project. All told, Mr. Foster will be paid $11.5 million for the project’s design phase; the additional funds will come from private sources, the library said.
The library has already spent $10 million on its renovation to date. The city money is expected to cover half the renovation cost, the library has said. But Anthony W. Marx, the library’s president, has also said that the project’s budget might ultimately exceed $300 million. The rest of the money will come from private donations, and selling off properties.
The library plans to sell its Mid-Manhattan circulating library across the street on Fifth Avenue and the Science, Industry and Business Library, on Madison Avenue at 34th Street, and to fold their operations into space at 42nd Street now occupied by stacks.
Critics have opposed the plans on the grounds that the library’s resources would be better spent on the system’s many branches and on a renovation of Mid-Manhattan in its current location. The library earlier this week released designs by Enrique Norten and his firm, Ten Arquitectos, for a new replacement library for the old Donnell Library on East 53rd Street that closed in 2008. The new library will be in the base of a hotel that is under construction at the site.
