SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — The South Orange Board of Trustees was presented with a plan for the proposed renovations at the Baird at its Oct. 22 meeting, when architects Peter Biber and Lauren Mitchell, of the Summit-based architecture firm The Biber Partnership AIA, shared their ideas for how to improve the community recreation complex on Mead Street.
Trustee Karen Hartshorn Hilton, who has been working on the renovation plan with the recreation department, said at the meeting that the Baird needs to be updated to accommodate the hundreds of South Orange residents who use it every day.
“This building is a mess and it needs immediate repair,” she said. “Many hundreds of residents use this building every day, from our most mature residents to our very young and every age in between. We’re trying to find the most cost-effective plan as possible and retain the historic essence of the building.”
Hilton mentioned the repairs that have already been completed at the Baird, including renovating the front entrance and porch, as well as the bathrooms. Biber and Mitchell went into more detail about future changes to the building.
“This building has what we’d call good bones,” Biber said at the meeting. “It’s a good building, but it’s an old building and the maintenance has been terrible. It has problems all over the place and one of the first things we’re looking at is how we’re going to fix the exterior of the building and how we’re going to take care of the roof, the siding, the trim, the windows and all of those issues that are fundamental to the extended life of the building.”
To improve the exterior of the building, Mitchell said that the addition at its rear will be removed and replaced with a new addition of a different size.
“That was built in the 1970s and 1980s and we’re proposing removing that from the building and rebuilding a new addition back there,” she said at the meeting. “It’s going to solve a lot of our code issues within the building.”
The layout on all three floors of the Baird will be changed, allowing for maximum meeting space and room for the Pierro Gallery to expand.
“We’ve added a game room at the front of the building, and straight in off the lobby is the art gallery,” Mitchell said. “We’re moving it off the second floor and onto the first so it has a prime entrance right off the front entrance to the building. It’ll allow for after-hours programs there, and I think a lot better sightlines. People will know that it’s there. I think a lot of people don’t know it’s on the second floor right now.”
There will be a coffee counter on the first floor of the new Baird, which will double as a waiting area for residents waiting for classes to end. A dance and exercise room will be built at the back of the first floor, and there will be art rooms and storage behind the gallery. The new addition will be used as a workshop for the maintenance of the building.
A field house will also be constructed into the hill on the side of the building. Mitchell said it would be used for sports equipment storage while the first floor will be outdoor parking for maintenance vehicles.
Mitchell also said she and Biber wanted to find a way to use the porch on the second floor of the Baird, so another cafe will be added upstairs.
“We wanted to make use of that porch and reenergize it,” Mitchell said. “We also wanted to add another gathering place, where there will be room for tables and chairs with a service area. Part of the porch we’ve been talking about enclosing in glass, which will make it usable not just during the summer months.”
Also on the second floor will be a multipurpose room with removable walls and meeting rooms where the current South Orange Parking Authority offices are located. The administrative offices will be moved to the rear of the second floor. More bathrooms will also be built on the second floor.
In addition to reorganizing the rooms on the second floor, a new hallway will be built to access the gym.
“We’re going to build a corridor that comes back and accesses the gym that is there now, which is just accessed through this little door that you sneak in the back corner,” Mitchell said. “It makes the gym more usable and it would be air conditioned and usable during the summer. Until we get a survey of the site, we’re not exactly sure how big we can make it, but we would like to make it contain a basketball court and to double as a community room and multipurpose space.”
Mitchell also discussed making the Baird more accessible to people with disabilities. Because one half of the second floor is 3 feet higher that the other half, having the elevator open on both sides will allow for more accessibility throughout the building.
The third floor of the Baird is home to a 100-seat theater, which will remain where it is.
“We’re proposing to leave the theater space in that location but really reenergizing it and reformatting it so that it can be used not just for the community theater but also for dance recitals, for music programs and really make it so that it can be used for anything and by multiple groups,” Mitchell said.
There will be another multipurpose room on the third floor as well.
“Almost every space in this building has a multipurpose function,” she said. “Everything can work in multiple different ways and makes it flexible for not only now, but for changing programs in the future.”
Biber also detailed the plans for the outside of the Baird, saying that he and Mitchell intend to build a terrace that leads to the second floor from the hill on the left side of the building.
“This area on the side of the hill is a gathering and seating area where you can run programs,” he said. “So you can see out onto the fields if you want to, or enter into the building this way.”
There are currently two fire escapes on the outside of the Baird: one at the front of the building and one at the back. Biber said they will be removed and replaced with stair towers, which will be effective in helping people exit the building quickly if necessary, and also improves the aesthetic appearance of the Baird. One will be on the right side of the front porch, and one will be near the rear of the building adjacent to the basketball court.
The plans for the Baird renovations are available for residents to see online at www.southorange.org. At the meeting, Village President Sheena Collum said that residents would be alerted when a timeline for work is decided upon and would be made aware of any future changes to the plan, should they be made.
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