Mayor Anthony Williams on Thursday brought his sales pitch for a new $180 million central library to the D.C. Council, while his critics vigorously sought to preserve the historic but deteriorating building that the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library now occupies.
In a rare appearance before a council committee, Williams said a new library on the site of the Old Convention Center — not an overhauled version of the existing building at Ninth and G streets NW, as others suggest — will provide “a new set of modern and effective tools to combat our education crisis.”
“While the physical investment is the construction of a new library, let me be clear. This is not just about architecture. This is not just about bricks and mortar. This is a social issue,” he told the Education, Libraries and Recreation committee, which is considering the library legislation.
Under the mayor’s proposal, a new library at a site bounded by Ninth, H and 11th streets and New York Avenue NW, would be financed with general obligation bonds, revenue from a 99-year commercial lease of the existing building, payment in lieu of property taxes by the lessee, and private fundraising.
The library issue has at least three competing interests. In addition to the mayor’s proposal, there are calls for a new library on a site other thanthe valuable Old Convention Center property and demands for a renovation of MLK — a 34-year-old structure designed by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
The mayor’s critics are lobbying to revamp the existing library with the addition of a fifth floor, a new atrium, staircases and replacement of the mechanical infrastructure. Renovation would be faster and less expensive, they say, by as much as $60 million.
Williams and his staff contend a full-scale overhaul would cost much more and force a years-long library shutdown.
At a glance
» Delays could cost the District federal dollars appropriated for a new library
» Planning for Old Convention Center site is almost finished
