City officials this week celebrated the groundbreaking for the $19.7 million replacement for the 1950s-era Cleveland Park Library at 3310 Connecticut Ave. NW.
The new library is expected to open in 2018 with new meeting spaces, outdoor reading areas, private study rooms, and environmentally friendly features that will qualify for Gold certification under LEED design standards, according to a news release.
During construction, library services are available at an interim facility at 4340 Connecticut Ave. NW, which opened Oct. 31 after the old building closed earlier that month. Demolition work and other preparations have taken place in the time since.
“The iconic new building will be demonstrably larger than the one that was just demolished,” D.C. Public Library chief Richard Reyes-Gavilan said in the release. “When complete, the Cleveland Park Library’s robust collections and new meeting spaces will attract even more residents to what is already our busiest neighborhood library.”
The city hired the team of Gilbane and Perkins Eastman for the project, who are partnering with the Saxon Collaborative firm of Ward 8 through a mentor-protege program for small businesses, the release says. Mayor Muriel Bowser attended Monday’s groundbreaking ceremony along with Reyes-Gavilan, Ward 3 D.C. Council member Mary Cheh and members of the D.C. Public Library Board of Trustees.
