The prefabricated building on Rhode Island Avenue NW is primed for book lovers, but the District’s Shaw community is still without a neighborhood library thanks to vexing, perhaps avoidable delays connecting the facility to power.
According to Pepco, the library system failed to inform the utility that it had a new building requiring electricity.
“They had pretty much finished construction before they ever contacted us,” Pepco spokesman Robert Dobkin said. “Contractors know they have to contact Pepco in advance.”
The Watha T. Daniel-Shaw library was one of four neighborhood branches closed in December 2004 for renovations. The other three, Benning, Anacostia and Tenley-Friendship, have since been replaced with interim facilities, and plans are finally in place to build all four anew.
But the 4,200-square-foot interim Shaw library, near the intersection of 10th Street and Rhode Island Avenue, remains locked and dark, its furniture, books and computers inaccessible to area bibliophiles. A news release issued by the library system June 29 promised to have Shaw up and running by July 13, a deadline that came and went without progress.
“I’d be surprised if they’re open by the time the kids go back to school,” said Alexander Padro, a Shaw advisory neighborhood commissioner. “I guess they’re just leery of setting another date considering they’ve failed to meet all the deadlines they’ve set before.”
The problem, officials say, is that all power lines in Shaw are buried, complicating a connection to a new facility. There are “trenches and things that have to be done,” D.C. Library spokeswoman Kandace Foreman said, adding that the library is working “as quickly as possible to get it open.”
Pepco wasn’t told about the project until July and received the construction drawings for the interim building only last week, Dobkin said. Now it must develop a scope and cost of work, which is expected to take several more days.
“We’re past frustrated,” said Sean Metcalf, spokesman for Ward 2 D.C. Council Member Jack Evans. “We passed that six months ago.”
