Augusta Tomorrow

Augusta's New Downtown Library Is Now Open

The 95,000 square foot building was designed by the Craig Gaulden Davis architectural firm of Greenville, SC and built by R.W. Allen Construction6/25/2010

Sylvia Cooper/Correspondent

The Augusta Chronicle

Augusta's $24 million library will open today after a 10 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony at the main entrance on Telfair Street.

The opening will be followed with a week of activities for young and old, beginning with NASCAR and Richmond County fire truck displays, an afternoon clown and magician show and an evening event with author Dorothea Benton Frank.

On top of that, there will be 22,000 new books on the shelves.

The opening is the culmination of five years of planning and work by Richmond County Library Board President Jane Howington; Gary Swint, director of the East Central Georgia Regional Library; Hugh Connolly, incorporator and honorary chairman of the Library Foundation and Millie Klosinski, development officer, as well as the library board and staff.

The library was built with Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax money, $2 million from the state, and additional funding from the foundation board's capital campaign to raise $3 million.

The 95,000-square-foot building at 823 Telfair St. was designed by the Craig Gaulden Davis architectural firm of Greenville, S.C., and built by R.W. Allen Construction.

"I think the new library will be what Augusta deserves and has deserved for a long time," Swint said. "It will be a library that's for modern day. We have information from past ages, but we're also looking toward the future."

Connolly, chairman of the site selection committee, said the library helps anchor downtown while serving as the centerpiece of Augusta's library system.

"The major objective is that it would be a durable and adaptable building because electronic advances make it difficult to know what libraries will be like in the future," he said. "It's constructed with quality material and designed in a way it wouldn't be extremely expensive to adapt for changing needs in the future."

"I'm glad it's come into existence," Connolly said. "I've always felt that the American public library represents an excellent example of American democracy."

Howington said Augusta can now be proud of its library.

"Your library is always the intellectual component of the community," she said. "It is a public library."

One disappointment has been that no one has stepped forward with $1 million to have the library named in his or her honor.

"The day we had the groundbreaking, the bottom fell out of the economy, and that hurt," she said. "We were convinced we could raise the money we didn't get from the Augusta Commission. We wanted to raise $3 million."

So far, the foundation has raised $400,000.

Still, everyone seems happy with the finished product, which is good, considering the major snags early on.

"It's wonderful now, but drop back three years, and it was awful," she said. "We had to haggle over land. We had to haggle with the Augusta Commission and the historic preservation commission."

IN APRIL 2008, the Augusta Historic Preservation Commission, rejected the design in a 4-2 vote. Members did not like the modernistic design, especially the proposed black granite entrance and the brick color. They said the design was not compatible with historic buildings along Greene and Telfair streets.

In an effort to get everyone on board, Howington and Swint met several times with the architects and leaders from Augusta Tomorrow, Historic Augusta, the preservation commission and others.

"We made every effort we could to accommodate the Historic Preservation Commission, but given the land restraints and the monetary constraints, we couldn't build something that looked like Tara," she said recently. "Form follows function. We couldn't build that with the money and land we had. We met them more than halfway. We didn't have endless acreage, and we didn't have endless money."

At one point amid the controversy and criticism, she compared herself to the Little Red Hen, who couldn't get anybody to plant, harvest or grind the corn or bake the bread, but everybody wanted to taste and criticize the final product.

After weeks of revisions, including changing the entrance from black granite to white sandstone and the proposed tan bricks to deep red, as well as changes to the Greene Street end to make it more compatible with the historic houses on that street, Mark Lorah, then chairman of the historic preservation commission, signed off on the design.

A GROUNDBREAKING ceremony was held Sept. 22, 2008, and construction began soon thereafter. Now after weeks of moving from the 50-year-old library across the street and working feverishly to be ready, excitement is building, Klosinski said.

"I feel like I'm on this crest," she said. "This has been five years in the making, and so many people have poured their heart and soul into this.

"We've gotten letters from people about their memories. So many of their memories growing up in Augusta were tied to experiences they had at a library in Augusta or a book, just remembering a book. And the feelings a book gives you."

Library officials expect a million books to be checked out this year, compared with 600,000 last year. And they believe the library will bring people back to downtown Augusta.

"I think the library is going to be that missing link that brings people downtown for reasons outside of the theater, outside of paid entertainment," Klosinski said. "I believe they'll come back like they do for the market downtown. It will be an activity, a form of entertainment for parents with kids, students, people looking for jobs. People looking to enrich what they need for their lives -- whether it be their job, their school or their home."