Tag: renovation church

Normal Public Library announces alternate location during renovations

Posted on 24/03/2025

NORMAL — Normal Public Library will close its 206 W. College Ave. location to the public at 5 pm March 30 in preparation for the upcoming asbestos abatement and renovation project.

The 206 W. College Ave. location will remain closed for the duration of the renovation project, which is expected to take 10 to 12 months.

The library board of trustees previously approved a $5.1 million bid from Broeren Russo Builders Inc. of Champaign to start work as early as April 8.

Access to library collections and services will be moved to a branch office in the former Busey Bank location at 201 W. College Ave., across the street from the library. This site will be accessible April 1.

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Planned services at the branch will include:

  • Curbside hold pickup in the first drive-thru lane of the building
  • A browsing collection of materials available for checkout
  • Public computing, printing, copying and faxing services

The majority of the library’s collection will remain available by request, and the staff will assist community members in accessing library services.

The library’s programs, including regular story times, book clubs, take-and-make programs and others, will continue at various off-site locations.

Saturdays on the

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IKEA to double its in-house design department

Posted on 05/03/2025

“At IKEA, we want to offer desirable and affordable designs to customers around the world. But people´s demands and expectations change with time, and we need to develop too, to stay relevant in our offer continuously. For many years, as we grew our business and entered new markets, we kept our in-house design team roughly the same size. We see now, with our current expansion plans and movements to deliver to our vision of creating a better everyday life for the many people, it´s time to invest and add more in-house design competence to meet these needs and ambitions”, says Emma Dafnäs, Range and Product Design Manager at IKEA of Sweden.

Today, IKEA has 18 in-house designers working with product development across the entire range. As an in-house designer, you are often part of several design projects at the time and, together with our product development teams and freelance designers, you contribute to approximately 2000 new products that are developed each year. At the heart of the IKEA product development is the Democratic Design model, meaning that all products are beautiful, functional and affordable with built-in quality and sustainability.

The ambition is to grow the in-house design department by roughly

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Apartment buildings in rural areas often denied renovation loans | News

Posted on 26/02/2025

Many rural municipalities have managed to improve the energy performance of public buildings. However, banks usually refuse loans for renovating old Soviet-era apartment buildings, with KredEx the only lifeline for associations.

Of the 300 apartment buildings in Järva Municipality, only about twenty have been renovated. According to Triin Tippi, head of the local government’s economic department, the issue is not a lack of willingness by the owners but rather that rural residents simply lack the funds to insulate their homes.

“Many apartment buildings actually have construction projects ready and waiting. But when the cost per square meter, per apartment or per resident is revealed, it turns out to be very high,” he explained.

Moreover, the renovation of a small apartment building, which is numerous in rural areas, is much more expensive per apartment than in a larger building.

Tippi mentioned that the pace of renovation is also limited because KredEx only provides loans to buildings where 80 percent of the apartments are owned by private individuals. Järva Municipality’s balance sheet alone includes about one hundred apartments in relevant buildings.

Kvatro Property Management manages 28 apartment buildings in Järva Municipality, with decisions already made to renovate 11. However, property manager Hele

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