Retail Developer Edges Out DCPL Plan to Relocate Main

A plan proposed by former District of Columbia Mayor Anthony Williams to build a new central library on the site of the old convention center has fallen through. Current Mayor Adrian Fenty announced May 12 that the city had reached an agreement with a developer to build a luxury hotel and up to 100,000 square feet of retail space on the site instead, the Washington Post reported May 12.

District of Columbia Public Library Chief Information Officer George Williams told American Libraries that the library was focusing on revitalizing branch libraries. “The need to provide good neighborhood libraries is greater right now,” he said, noting that the plan to build a new central library was hurt when it was not approved by the city council during Mayor Williams’s 1997–2007 tenure. “What we feel is important is that residents see improvements to the D.C. library system beginning at their neighborhood libraries.”

Four branches were closed in 2004 for renovations; DCPL’s Williams said that interim libraries currently serve each of those locations and new buildings for all four will be open in 2010. “Everything is fully funded. Our mandate has always been to have them constructed by 2010,” he said. Published reports had given earlier opening dates for those libraries, but Williams said that those published dates had never been final.

DCPL has a number of other branch-renovation projects in various stages, including the refurbishment of the Georgetown branch, which was devastated by fire last year. Georgetown is also scheduled for a 2010 reopening.

Williams said that while there are ideas under consideration for replacing or renovating the downtown Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library—including relocating library services to the Carnegie Library building in Mount Vernon Square that functioned as the central library before the King building was built, while relocating administrative functions to a less expensive area—there are no concrete plans for a new or renovated central library. The King Library was granted landmark status last year by the District of Columbia Historic Preservation Review Board, giving it legal protection against destruction, but the building has also been beset by problems since its 1972 opening, including a faulty environmental system, and has deteriorated due to the long-delay of maintenance projects.

Posted on May 16, 2008. Discuss.

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