Architect details Bountiful branch planning; geotechnical borings and site survey underway

Trent Smith, lead architect with Meyer Northwest, told the Davis County Library Board on May 8 that the design team is moving from feasibility into detailed site investigation and documentation for the planned Bountiful branch project, including new geotechnical borings and a near-complete civil survey.

The work will include geotechnical borings targeted at the footprint of a former Davis Arts building on the parcel south of the existing library, a full site survey of the existing library and adjacent lot, and construction of a technical Revit model capturing renovations back to 1968. Smith said the team has also produced a Matterport scan of the current building so remote team members can tour it digitally.

Smith said the original feasibility study by FFKR Architects (2021) included six borings but that those borings do not appear to cover the area where the older Davis Arts building and a small log cabin once stood. "We're just dotting our i's, crossing our t's to make sure that that actually happened," Smith said about confirming whether former basements or foundations were removed and backfilled.

The team has solicited three proposals for new geotechnical work; Smith said the original laboratory that did the 2021 work could amend its report but quoted higher pricing. Great Basin Engineering is performing the civil survey and Smith said that work is roughly 75% complete. The team is also discussing options such as limited trenching and ground-penetrating radar where warranted to confirm subsurface conditions before construction contracts are issued.

Smith described other preparatory work already completed: a digital model that records five prior renovations to the Bountiful Library, adjacency studies to inform room placement, and user-story analysis to track typical patron workflows (for example, how patrons move between reference, circulation and printing). The design team is also studying stack capacity and said staff and designers are considering reducing stacks by about 10 percent and standardizing shelving in a future building.

On programming and operations, Smith said the team is "seriously, seriously considering" adding a drive-up pickup lane to the branch to serve patrons who drive farther than to other locations. He framed drive-up pickup as an operational trade-off compared with the existing after-hours book drop, which the team said can cause damage when materials drop into a basement.

Smith said the studio has done precedent studies, site visits and operations meetings with library staff and other systems (including Salt Lake City) to inform design decisions. He described an intensive meeting schedule in April and said the team would continue a high cadence of work into May to maintain momentum.

Board chair Sarah Reeb and Library Director Josh Johnson participated in the discussion; Reeb introduced the item and Johnson coordinated logistics and noted the team will bring more specific materials to the board at a future meeting.