The District is finally preparing to demolish four neighborhood libraries, nearly three years after they were closed for reconstruction.
Two contracts totaling $1.14 million have been awarded to a pair of D.C. companies, both listed as small, local and disadvantaged. The deal to raze the Anacostia, Benning, Tenley-Friendship and Watha T. Daniel libraries is a key step in the reconstruction of the shuttered facilities — one that should ease community frustration over meager headway, said Monica Lewis, D.C. Public Library spokeswoman.
“They’re going to see it as a further sign of progress,” Lewis said of residents.
The four libraries were closed in 2004,but only recently has the library system moved to open interim facilities. The temporary 4,200-square-foot Anacostia building opened Monday, while the Tenley-Friendship interim library opened last year in a storefront on Wisconsin Avenue. Benning and Shaw are still waiting for their pre-fabricated interim facilities — the Benning library was shipped in February and is in storage in Manassas.
The timeline for demolition of the closed libraries has not been established, Lewis said, but a schedule for construction of new buildings has been finalized, though not released publicly.
“All we’ve got is a construction fence blocking people’s ability to walk on the sidewalk,” Alex Padro, a Shaw advisory neighborhood commissioner, said of the interim site on Rhode Island Avenue. “That’s all we’ve got to show for our library.”
The demolition, Padro said, is a “sign that things are moving forward to where they were supposed to be three years ago.”
According to the Office of Contracting and Procurement, the demolition contracts were awarded to Goel Services Inc. for $620,580, and Horton & Barber Construction for $523,994.
