Founded in 1896, Maitland Library is one of the oldest buildings in Maitland, Florida. As a staple Maitland landmark, emotional ties to the library run deep in the community. The challenge of acknowledging the reverence people have for the site while simultaneously detaching them from their emotional connections to an outdated building had to be overcome by creating a clear vision of a new, modern library that would meet current needs while supporting future possibilities.

With the help of RVi’s Orlando team, led by Vice President Ryan Seacrist, the library, along with the nearby Quinn Strong Park, is undergoing one of its most transformative eras yet. The site will be redesigned to accommodate the community and its evolving needs. Throughout the process, Seacrist’s team’s primary goal was to honor the site’s deep history while designing for the future.

Trusted relationships created project opportunities

RVi’s Florida offices have made great strides in obtaining public work over the years in pursuit of the company’s strategic goal to diversify client types and market-share. Not only does Maitland Library align with this goal, but the project stemmed from genuine connections that the RVi team already had with the City of Maitland. Seacrist in particular has built trusted relationships with many members of the City of Maitland over the years through previous work he’s done with the city.

These essential connections and the team’s geographical proximity to Maitland made the firm a desirable partner in conjunction with HBM, the project prime consultant and esteemed Ohio-based architecture firm. Bob Moser, RVi Business Development Director, identified HBM as a national leader in library design and leveraged RVi’s connections to introduce the project to the architect and gain a key role on what became the winning team.

Besides the library, the Orlando project team also had to consider the existing Quinn Strong Park, a public park with a senior center that is a primary source for senior resources and activities. The park site was chosen as the location for the new library – a decision that would forever change the park and replace the senior center.

“The park is just as important to the community as the library, so the need for cohesion was clear from the beginning,” stated Seacrist. “While the project is technically a library design project, it’s also equally a park project. The two cannot be separated, so the team is designing them simultaneously. We don’t want it to feel like a library sitting in a park, or a park with a library in it; we want it to feel like it’s a cohesive civic space.”

The project, which began in 2022, is still ongoing. Key services that RVi has provided so far are general site concepts, public hearings and presentations with various city boards and city council, public outreach, construction cost estimating, and schematic design.

Proactive outreach and empathy to community concerns led to strong community buy-in

This project would be a large investment from the entire community. Thus, it would need to be designed for generations to come. RVi’s team had a strong plan for engaging with the community and creating positive sentiment. This began with four public engagement meetings alongside HBM to get the community’s reaction to initial designs and gain more insight into what they’d like to see.

During the RFQ process, the Orlando team assisted the City of Maitland with marketing and public relations materials and graphics for use in City sponsored social media posts and advertisement to explain how the project would benefit the city and minimally affect taxes. A large part of their efforts was consensus building and reassuring residents of the preservation of historical elements. The team had to quell nerves and answer questions about the demolition of the existing senior center to create a new library, what would become of the historic building, and what purpose the new library and park would serve.

“Demolishing the senior center was a sensitive topic,” Seacrist said. “Residents wanted to know why we would get rid of the senior center to put in a library. To answer that, we assured them that we would include senior programming within the new library, which would be large and modern enough to do that. I think that once it was understood that we were going to rejuvenate Quinn Strong Park along with the library, and maintain elements of the original library building, it took away worries about losing the existing park or the historical library.”

RVi’s team assured community members that the space would be enhanced to serve the whole city, so that even if someone isn’t going to the library, they can still enjoy the park and not lose any open space. The community ultimately agreed that the new library would be the right move for the community. The city residents voted to approve a library funding plan, which would marginally increase property taxes throughout the city. With the city voting “yes” for the project, RVi and HBM received the full contract and could move forward with designing.

A promising public space for future generations

The project has been a great testament to the power of relationships and maintaining reverence for the historical fabric of a city. By acknowledging the questions of the community and providing design options that considered those concerns, RVi will play a pivotal role in revitalizing a beloved area of the City of Maitland.

“I think our team was very successful in communicating which design is the right design and the reasons why,” Seacrist said. “Our partnership with the City of Maitland went smoothly for a number of reasons, but at the core, we each had a genuine desire to create the best space we possibly could for Maitland residents.”

With the schematic design approved, RVi is moving into design development and construction documents under the technical guidance of Rob Bias, RVi’s Orlando Director of Landscape Architecture, and Juliana Herrera, Designer. The project has an estimated design completion date near the end of 2025. Construction is projected to begin in 2026, with an optimistic opening in 2027.