October 2010 Building Update: What's Next?!
The Rifle Branch Library will open on November 20th at 10am. We are planning a grand opening celebration from 10am to 2pm that day with a few speeches and a lot of fun. The new building features three meeting rooms, four private study rooms, expanded collections in all areas and an early literacy installation for children ages 0 to 5. We can’t wait to share it with you!
Additionally, if you haven’t seen our newly remodeled branch in Parachute, I invite you to stop in for a visit. We’ve added 4,500 square feet that allowed for a 100-person meeting room as well as expanded public spaces. The building also received a complete makeover of mechanical systems offering us more economical (and ecological) energy use at the facility.
These two projects have also generated a number of jobs for local companies. Over 75% of the subcontractors on both projects were from the West Slope or Garfield County. The District is beginning a remodel of the New Castle Branch Library and will host community meetings on October 28 at 3pm and 6:30pm to give the community an opportunity to discuss the changes they’d like to see at their library. The District has hired B&H Construction and A4 Architects, both of Carbondale, for the project. The library will move to a temporary location near City Market in January 2011. The remodel should be complete by November of 2011.
Other projects in the works include Silt, Carbondale, and Glenwood. In Silt, we are in the process of purchasing land from the Town of Silt next to our existing library. We plan to construct a new 7,500 square foot library and are trading the Town our existing building to be repurposed for their use. We are also in the process of purchasing land in Carbondale, on the corner of Sopris Avenue and 3rd Street, to construct a new library. That library is slated to be 13,000 square feet and should begin in the coming year. A new site for the Glenwood Springs Branch Library is currently being studied by Canyon Springs, LLC, a developer hired by the Glenwood Springs Downtown Development Authority to help select a new library location in downtown Glenwood as well as site a parking structure that would serve downtown businesses as well as the library.
The District is funding these projects through Certificates of Participation, a bond-like instrument sold in coupons of $5,000 that will be paid through the one mill of property tax that the District is collecting until 2027. The Library Board of Trustees felt it was prudent to deliver on their promise to the voters that new libraries would be built in all six Garfield County communities as well as take advantage of lower construction and financing costs during the current downturn in the economy. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns you might have about our projects or the library.
-Amelia Shelley, Executive Director