The District is getting back a third of the nearly $18 million it spent to repair and upgrade the Georgetown Neighborhood Library after the historic building nearly burned to the ground in 2007.
D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan said the District will receive $6 million in a settlement after suing the contractors who were renovating the 76-year-old building at the time of the blaze. The Washington Examiner reported in 2007 that investigators determined the fire was accidentally caused by construction workers using a “mechanical heat device.”
The city did not seek a refund for the money it spent on upgrading the building after the blaze as the decision to improve some services and add enhancements were made after assessing the fire damage, according to a statement from Nathan’s office.
“The office agreed to the settlement to avoid the costs and uncertainty of pursuing civil litigation further and to allow the parties to put this incident from nearly five years ago behind them,” the statement said.
But running total spent on the library post-fire is at $17.9 million, the city says. But final damages to the library are still being calculated as the restoration of the Peabody Collection of Georgetown neighborhood history is ongoing. The library foundation has so far raised $300,000 for the restoration process and estimates it needs about $125,000 more to complete its work, according to D.C. Public Library spokesman George Williams.
“The damage was extensive,” Williams said. “The cupola and roof fell into the second floor; all those books and materials were lost. We were able to save the historic Peabody section by flooding it.”
Items recovered from the Peabody Room immediately after the fire were placed in a freezer truck within 48 hours to prevent mold from developing. Roughly 80 percent of the collection was saved, and Williams said the restoration process for those historic materials is nearly complete.
The insurance carriers for general contractor Dynamic Corp. and subcontractor Two Brothers Contracting will pay the settlement into the city’s general fund. Two Brothers was on site the day of the fire on April 30, 2007, according Williams.
The library blaze was the same day that the city’s historic Eastern Market caught fire in an unrelated incident.
