After more than two years and $9.5 million, new Pierce County library opens this week
On Thursday, the Pierce County Library System opened a new interim Lakewood library on the corner of Gravelly Lake Drive Southwest and Alfaretta Street Southwest. It will be open seven days a week.
The new boxy blue building is a couple blocks from the old, and beloved, Lakewood library on Wildaire Road Southwest, which is being demolished after the building was found to be in dire shape. When it closed in June 2022, it was one of the busiest branches in the county library system, with nearly a quarter of a million annual visitors prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, as previously reported by The News Tribune.
Across the street from the Lakewood Towne Center and on a bus line, the new interim library is 7,500 square feet. Large windows bring in natural light to work spaces and reading areas and a children’s area is full of books, blocks and toys.
Library officials were careful to preserve some of the public art displayed in the old building, and there are lots of outlets and plugs to encourage people to work and use the free high-speed WiFi. There are conference rooms and study rooms to check out, a permanent shelf of books for sale organized by Friends of the Library, in addition to classes and community events that are expected to kick off in October.
The library will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday.
So, what’s happening to the old library?
The plan is for this new $9.5 million building to be used while the old library site is demolished and debris is cleared.
Long-term planning and potential rebuilding on the Wildaire Road Southwest property will continue to be discussed by the Pierce County Library System’s Board of Trustees, said executive director Gretchen Caserotti, who gave The News Tribune a tour of the new library Tuesday.
Pierce County Library Systems is leasing the land of the new site but owns the building, meaning if it decides not to renew the lease, it could move the building to another location or sell it, Caserotti said.
The Lakewood Libraries Building Community Advisory Committee has recommended building a new permanent library in the same location as the old one. Caserotti said library officials would explore that concept and costs after addressing other pressing needs in the library system.
“We have a lease that we’ll be able to renew in perpetuity until a more permanent solution is determined,” she said. “We have a lot of needs in the system that we’re really trying to wrap our arms around. Most of our buildings were built in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, so they all need some work, and we need to figure out how we’re going to manage all of those.”
Caserotti said the speed at which staff was able to find an interim location for the Lakewood library and open it is “something we can feel really proud of.”
“We just got the certificate of occupancy last week, and we’re opening this week,” she said. “That is how fast we are turning this around. Most places will take a few weeks, maybe two months, and we are doing it in a week, [that’s] how important it is.”
In the more than two years Lakewood was without a permanent library, library staff went out in the community with pop-up locations and story times and expanded hours at the Tillicum library branch, said Somer Hanson, marketing and communications manager for the Pierce County Library System.
“I want the community to know that we recognize it’s been tough. It’s been really hard, there were a lot of feelings and things were a little bumpy. It’s hard when things move really quickly,” Caserotti said. “I really want this community to recognize the opportunities of the future and the potentials that new libraries can bring to communities. … We want the library services coming out of this branch to feel just as special as the memories of [those] who grew up in that other building.”
This story was originally published September 12, 2024 at 5:15 AM.
