Warehouse to Library, Maker Space, and Hall

Organize along the long axis, from service to quiet.

• Maker space at the west end, at the dock. It needs deliveries, it generates dust and noise, and its sawdust and solvent use make it the natural reason to keep the dock. It is also the only program element that is genuinely compatible with the truck apron.
• Community hall in the middle bay. It is the element that must be usable in the evening without opening the library, so give it its own entry, its own lockable lobby, and its own restrooms. It also acts as the acoustic buffer between the noisy maker space and the quiet reading room.
• Library and reading at the east end. Quietest, farthest from the dock and truck apron, and it can be given new high glazing on the east wall without disturbing the existing structure.
• Staff/support and the mezzanine above the hall's back-of-house, not above the reading room, so the quiet zone keeps its volume.

Separate circulation is the key move: two public entries (library, hall) plus the dock. Mixing the library entry with an evening event crowd will create a staffing problem forever.

Do not promise an 80-ft clear span. Promise a room that reads as column-free.

The arithmetic:

• Bays are 40 x 40 ft. A 40-ft clear span requires a transfer girder roughly 24-30 in. deep, or a deep plate girder if you remove an interior column line.
• You only have 13 ft to the bottom of the joists. A 30-in. girder and its fireproofing drop that to under 10 ft - the reading room loses the volume that makes the building worth converting.
• The existing columns sit on spread footings designed for the original loads. Removing one transfers its load to its neighbors, and those footings were not designed for it. Expect foundation work under the floor slab, which means cutting and restoring the slab.

What to do instead:

• Give the reading room one full bay, 40 x 80 ft (two bays), so columns appear only at the perimeter. That is a generous, genuinely column-free-feeling room.
• Align the stack ranges and the public service desk off the 40-ft grid, with aisles landing on column faces rather than around them.
• If the donor insists, price the transfer girder honestly - including the footings, the fireproofing, and the 3 ft of volume - and let them choose.

The single decision: sprinkler the entire building.

Egress check first:

• Both exits are on the west wall. The far northeast corner is about 233 ft diagonally from them, well beyond the 200-ft unsprinklered exit access travel distance for assembly and business occupancies, and the common path of travel from the east end far exceeds the 75-ft unsprinklered limit.
• Adding the 200-seat hall adds a high-occupant-load assembly component that will dominate the exit width calculation.

What sprinklering buys, all at once:

1. Travel distance increases to roughly 250 ft, which the existing geometry may then satisfy without a new exit - or at least reduces the number of new exits to one.
2. Common path of travel rises to about 100 ft.
3. Occupancy separation between the maker space and the assembly/library goes away - the non-sprinklered separation between an F-1 shop and an A-3 hall would otherwise be a rated wall through a building full of exposed steel and wood shop dust.
4. The mezzanine becomes possible - an unsprinklered mezzanine in an existing single-story building is heavily limited; sprinklering is usually the enabling condition.
5. It is almost certainly required anyway by the woodworking shop.

Also required regardless: a new exit at the east end, panic hardware and clear egress from the hall, and a fire alarm with notification. Verify all figures against the edition in force and get a code review from the AHJ before design development.