As construction on the new Linda Sokol Francis Brookfield Library chugs along toward completion this summer, officials are now offering local residents an opportunity for families to leave a legacy at the campus by purchasing commemorative pavers for the library’s plaza or purchasing memorial trees or shrubs to complete the landscape.
Pavers come in two sizes. The 8-by-9-inch pavers ($100) can accommodate six lines of text, with 14 characters per line, while 5-by-11-inch pavers ($75) allow for four lines of text, 17 characters per line.
Messages can be personalized and can leave a legacy for your family or business or can be purchased in memory of a loved one or other special person. The pavers will be part of a triangular brick paver plaza outside the main entrance to the new library.
A first wave of pavers will be installed in summer 2021, but anyone who’d like their personalized pavers to be included in that project needs to order their bricks by May 1. A second installation of commemorative pavers will be completed in the fall.
In addition to the commemorative brick pavers, the library is offering families the chance to purchase various trees and shrubs in memory of a loved one that will become a permanent part of the landscape on three sides of the library building itself or in the mini-park/parking lot areas across Lincoln Avenue on the site of the present library.
The park/parking lot will be constructed later this year after the completion of the new library and the demolition of the old one.
Some of the trees, including all three flowering crabapples for the mini-park, are already sold out, but as of last week, plenty were still available.
Purchasing a memorial tree or shrub is not cheap. The least expensive specimens are the four witch hazels slated for planting on the south side of the library, at $1,000 each.
Redpointe maple trees, which turn a brilliant crimson in the autumn, will cost you $2,500 each but they will be prominently located in the parkway and at the edge of the front lawn along Park Avenue in front of the library. As of late last week, three of the planned seven maples had been purchased.
Directly behind the library will be a line of Regal Prince oak trees (a white swamp oak cultivar), which are tall and narrow, to screen the library from residences to the east. To purchase one of those trees as a memorial will cost $1,500.
Three other species planned for the park/parking lot area, and each costing $1,500, are six Princeton elms and one Shademaster honeylocust (already purchased), both of which have leaves that turn yellow in autumn, and three white swamp oaks, which also turn an orangey gold in fall.
More information and order forms are available at the Brookfield Public Library’s website.
