It’s been 20 years since it was first suggested that Eugene build a new library, and now that construction is progressing on time and within its budget, the city will boast a new public library in the fall of 2002. The new building will be more than three times the size of the current structure, located at 13th Avenue and Willamette Street.
Molly Stafford, Eugene Public Library Foundation board member and chairwoman of the fundraising group for the library called “Building for Generations,” said the city council has been looking at the need for a new library since about 1981.
She said several library plans were presented but turned down by voters, and it wasn’t until 1998 that a plan was finally approved.
“In 1998, a committee of citizens appointed by Mayor Jim Torrey held a series of community meetings to ask citizens what they wanted in terms of library service,” Stafford said. “The response came back very clearly that people wanted a new, larger main library in or near downtown.”
The council has committed nearly $19.4 million from the Urban Renewal Funds to finance the construction of the new library, which is located near the intersection of 10th Avenue and Olive Street. Library project manager Carol Hildebrand said the district is the primary source of funding for the project.
The total cost of the downtown library is estimated at around $34 million. Stafford said this includes $1.9 million from a 1998 tax levy and $5 million from the Public Library Foundation, including money from the sale of the existing library and other property held by the city for possible library use.
The foundation’s board members said a key benefit of the new library is that it is expected to be an economic boost for the downtown area.
Tom Wiper, chairman for the library fundraising campaign said there were two main reasons why planners decided to build the library downtown.
“First, it will provide a cornerstone for the restructure of the downtown area; it will provide a beautiful building that will service our citizens and also attract visitors,” he said. “Secondly, it will help to revitalize downtown and help the businesses in the area.”
The new, larger downtown library will also bring a number of features that the current library can not provide, Wiper said.
“The biggest feature is space — room for more books, room for study tables, room for comfortable chairs so you can sit and read,” Stafford said.
She added that computers will be distributed throughout the library and the new location will also offer several meeting rooms that will be available for use by the public.
Another new addition will be a children’s area, which Hildebrand said will provide the space needed for children to read and be read to, as well as enjoy puppet shows, arts and crafts and magic shows.
Stafford said the children’s area will be about the size of the entire main floor of the current library.
“We make a real effort to provide these activities for children and their parents,” Hildebrand said. “We make it easy for them.”
Parking will most likely not be an issue as far as the Eugene Public Library Foundation is concerned. Wiper said there will be 70 metered parking spaces in the library’s underground parking lot, covered bike racks and nearby existing parking facilities. There is also a LTD station located just across the street from the library.
Hildebrand said a key element in the fundraising campaign has been the more than 1,500 citizens and foundations that have donated money to the project.
But while the new library is expanding and modernizing, the one thing that will remain constant is the its services.
“The mission will not change in the new library, but the facility will provide new opportunities,” Stafford said. “In the past, one of our goals was increasing the library collection. Now our main focus is raising funds to ensure that the new library will be the size and quality that citizens of Eugene really want and need.”