The King County Library System has narrowed its focus to one option for a temporary library site to serve the community when the Auburn Library closes for a year of renovations this fall.
But given the sensitivity of talks with the owners of that unnamed option, KCLS officials are keeping mum.
“We are in real estate negotiations now, so I can’t really talk about those,” said Denise Siers, director of public services for the King County Library System. “What I can do is assure you that when the library does close, we will have a temporary site to provide ongoing services. We know how important it is to provide services to people once a library closes, especially for an extensive period of time.
“… I can say that we’ve chosen an area to pursue, but I can’t say at this point that the negotiations on that are final,” Siers added.
The City of Auburn originally pressed for a 20,000-square-foot building in the early 1990s, but funding and other constraints only allowed KCLS to build to 15,000-square-feet, and that’s what the library opened with in 1998.
King County residents supported a $172 million capital bond in September 2004 to pay for the Auburn Library project among other library expansions and renovations.
The expansion will add the originally-intended 5,000 square feet, most noticeably in the form of a glass-paneled addition that will expand into a portion of the parking space on the current east side of the building.
Among the other features will be:
• An expanded children’s area.
• A new meeting room in the northeast corner of the addition, serving as a quiet space when it is not a meeting room. When there is not a gathering in the current meeting room, it is closed, locked and unavailable. The new meeting room will feature sliding glass doors to make it a more interactive, multi-use space.
• The relocation of bathrooms to the west side of the building and an expanded entrance way and media area in the space the restrooms now occupy.
• A quiet study area that will significantly increase the amount of seating space.
• An automated material handling system that will let patrons check in their books and get a receipt for them
• Additional spaces for laptops and additional laptops for check out. The library will keep the same amount of fixed computers,
Auburn Branch Manager Steven Bailey noted the amount of planning and the many details that go into a project of such magnitude.
“The architects are in the midst of design review right now, kind of fixing the details as it were and making sure that all the numbers match and that we are coming in on or under budget,” Bailey said. “After that, we have to go back to the City for permitting. Following that process, we’ll put the project out for bid to contractors, and things will start moving really fast. Given that process, November has been tossed around as a target date for closure, although it could be longer before we actually close down.”
