Champaign Public Library Featured in the News Gazette. Here is the article by Mike Monson.
CHAMPAIGN - Jason Shahan of Champaign admits he's something of a library junkie. The 28-year-old visits the Champaign Public Library on average three times a week.
So he's eagerly awaiting the grand opening of the new $29.4 million library that sits just north of the existing library at 505 S. Randolph St. It's set to open Jan. 6 after more than two years of construction.
Advertisement
"My friends and I, we all talk about going to the new library," Shahan said. "We want to be the first ones standing in line when it opens."
Janice Moment, an 11-year library circulation employee, is just as excited about the 122,000-square-foot facility (triple the size of the current library). After years of working in an inadequate facility, she said she was stunned by the new state-of-the-art library when she toured it recently.
"It left me speechless and I'm not speechless very often," she said.
It's a common reaction. The library, under construction since September 2005, is drawing raves from a lot of people.
Director Marsha Grove shows off the conveyor system in the basement of the new Champaign Public Library. The system will begin the immediate processing of returned books. By Vanda Bidwell
"This community is going to be wowed," Library Director Marsha Grove said. "I think it'll be probably the nicest library in the state."
Champaign resident Kyle Robeson, who, with his wife, Phyllis, donated $500,000 toward the facility, said he is thrilled with the final product.
"It's fantastic," he said. "There is nothing in central Illinois that's going to touch it."
Private donations raised by the library's foundation provided $3 million of the total cost. The city is paying for the rest. The city council raised the home rule sales tax by one-quarter cent and increased the telecommunications tax by 2.5 percent two years ago to help pay for the project.
Before the grand opening, however, library patrons will have to undergo a little withdrawal. The old library will be closed from Monday through Jan. 5, giving employees time to shelve books and get the new facility ready for public use.
Officials promise the four-week wait will be worth it.
Pat Dorsey, president of PKD Inc., the construction manager for the project, praised the city council and library board for not skimping, but instead building a library - with a sturdy concrete superstructure - that he said should last a century or more.
"I think the city purposely said, 'We want to make a permanent statement,' " Dorsey said, who also called the interior "spectacular."
The building includes a full basement, two floors open to the public and a smaller third floor where administrative offices will be.
The library makes extensive use of natural light, with abundant windows and skylights.
The north wall on the second floor, which looks out onto West Healey Street, is virtually all glass. The west wall is mostly windows, though there are intermittent brick piers and copper mesh screens that help keep direct sunlight out. Most of the south wall is also windows, made of glass that diffuses direct sunlight. The south windows also include automatic roller shades on timers.
The second floor contains, in addition to the glass atrium skylight, another 40 or so smaller solar tubes, which are skylights that offer diffused natural light. The second floor's fluorescent lighting system dims when sensors determine that enough natural light is available.
Having a bright library full of natural light was a priority, Grove said.
"When you have a big square building like this, it can feel very dark inside if you don't have natural light," she said. "I think the architects were going for a warm, inviting feeling in the building - and they succeeded."
Carol Ross Barney, a 1971 University of Illinois graduate, designed the building. She is the owner of Ross Barney Architects in Chicago. She was in Champaign recently, taking dozens of pictures of the library.
"Having a building is like having a baby," she said.
She said the brown-brick exterior is "a quiet building in terms of the material and the scale" that is respectful of nearby historic buildings. The building is across State Street from Edison Middle School and the Solon house.
But the showpiece of the building is its interior, which "was designed to create a community space that is memorable and exciting," Ross Barney said.
A grand staircase, with limestone steps, links the first and second floors - a visual magnet because of a nearby wall, made up of limestone and brown bamboo paneling, that extends from the first floor all the way to the second-floor ceiling.
The staircase is "an attempt to join the children's section (on the first floor) and the adult section (on the second floor) all into one experience, one library," Ross Barney said.
She said she designed the library to include both public community spaces and "quiet, restful places" where students can study without interruption. To that end, the library will include five group study rooms and a large "quiet study" room with seating for about 20 people.
The facility will include 122 public computers, offer more than 400 places for patrons to sit and have five public meeting rooms.
An expanded children's area will be one of the library's highlights. It will include a low-to-the-ground children's service desk with colored lights at the base, as well as a children's story room and a teen room, which will be glassed off and offer music, colorful lights, teen-only computers and a room where teens can watch DVDs.
During the closure, the demolition of the old, current library at 505 S. Randolph St. will begin. The new library is just north of the old facility. Later this spring, the site of the old library will serve as the new parking lot. Patrons will have to walk around the demolition site for a few months to get to the library.
Patrons can use the Douglass Branch Library at 504 E. Grove St., C, during the next month, or the Urbana Free Library. Customers also can reserve items for pickup, both online or by phone, and pick those items up at the Bookmobile, which will be stationed in the library parking lot from noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
