Residents are split over which two exterior design options for the new Silver Spring library would draw more people into the building and provide proper access to library users.

One design presented in a community meeting Thursday features an all-glass façade on the Fenton Street side of the building, a mostly concrete front on Wayne Avenue and a series of tiered, green roofs.

The library will be built on the corner of Wayne and Fenton.

In the other option, the sides of the building — mostly glass facades on both Wayne and Fenton — would not be parallel to the streets and instead the building would be turned to follow the proposed Purple Line tracks that will run through the site.

Both options designed by Arlington, Va.-based architects Lukmire Partnership would have an entrance with elevators on Wayne and an entrance with an escalator on Fenton. The building will house an art center and a coffee shop on the first two floors, a 65,000-square-foot library on the next three floors, county offices on the sixth floor and community meeting rooms and terraces on the roof.

The only major differences in the design were aesthetic, with those differences resulting from how the building would interact with the Purple Line, the architects said.

"It's the strangest element to address that you wouldn't expect to address on any library," said Bill Evans, a partner with Lukmire.

The library would feature a proposed Purple Line stop, but Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) must still make his official decision on a Purple Line route. Lukmire only presented designs that included the Purple Line tracks.

Most of the debate among residents was over the aesthetic of the building and access.

Silver Spring resident Jon Lourie called the first option "chaotic" and favored the option that more closely followed the Purple Line.

"It's not architecture, it just doesn't work," Lourie, an architect and the chairman of the Silver Spring Urban District Advisory Board, said of the first option. "… It looks like two different people designing two different buildings."

Lourie also criticized the escalator at the Fenton Street entrance, saying it takes up too much space.

Other residents said the escalator, which would be prominent behind a glass façade on Fenton, could serve as an inviting design element instead of a drab elevator.

"Give us the dignity of having a proper entrance," Silver Spring resident Kathlin Smith said. "Give us the presence on this street to get people into the library."

The designs Lukmire presented included a pedestrian bridge that would connect the third floor of the library building to the fourth floor of the Wayne Avenue garage. Whether to include a pedestrian bridge has been another hotly contested issue, with residents split, county officials in favor and county planners against it.

The County Council's Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee on Monday will review whether to amend the 1999 Silver Spring Urban Renewal Plan that prohibits bridges over Wayne Avenue. A full council vote will follow.

Takoma Park resident Melanie Hennigan said the library would truly be open to all visitors if the bridge were included, along with elevators at the Wayne Avenue entrance and an escalator at the Fenton Street entrance.

"You have to give all people with different preferences their due," Hennigan said. "If you take any away then you are looking at failure."

Thursday's meeting, which drew about 30 residents, was the fourth and final meeting on the exterior design. Lukmire will present its draft final design to the community in September.

There were nine community meetings to determine the requirements and design of the library site, which also includes a residential building on Bonifant Street. At those meetings, residents favored an option that would have placed the library along Bonifant and the apartment building along Wayne Avenue, but Leggett and the council chose otherwise.