CAMPBELL — One of the oldest county libraries is getting a complete overhaul more than a decade after city officials first identified the need for a drastic upgrade.
The 24,000 square foot-library, which has been out of commission since 2021 when operations moved into the Campbell Community Center, will be torn down to its steel frames and rebuilt on the same footprint into a new, modernized space that is estimated to cost $22.3 million.
In September, the Campbell City Council awarded the project to Benicia-based company, Lathrop Construction Associates, Inc., and last week, city and library officials held a ground breaking ceremony. The new facility is expected to open summer 2025.
City Manager Brian Loventhal said the need for a new library was identified in 2013 as city officials examined what facilities needed a facelift. Those costs ballooned to upward of $180 million, but the library, he said is the “focus of our community.”
“It is a place of education, it’s a place for children to learn and feel welcome, it’s a place for seniors to go and it’s a place for people to meet and socialize,” he said. “The programs and the functions within that space are different in a new library than they ever were in the past. In the past, it was focused on stacks and stacks of books, it’s now more focused on interactions and people spaces.”
The new library is being funded by Measure O — a $50 million bond measure approved by nearly 70% of Campbell voters in 2018. The city has also received outside grant funding to aid in renovation costs. Measure O will also help fund the construction of a new police building that will house 9-1-1 dispatch and an emergency operation center that is up to the latest fire and earthquake codes.
Diane Roche, a spokesperson for the Santa Clara County Library District, said the library is the second oldest facility in the district and was last remodeled in 1989, making it the library to go the longest without a “significant upgrade.”
“We look forward to welcoming the residents of Campbell to the bright, open and fully renovated library they deserve,” she said in a statement.
Susan Gore, the president of the Friends of Campbell Library, a nonprofit that started in 1975 to support the library, said a few attendees were “almost in tears of happiness” during last week’s ground breaking ceremony.
“This is such an important community asset,” she said. “There will a lot of people from the community eager to see this library being built.”
The Friends of Campbell Library is currently raising money for new equipment and to help enhance library services when it opens in a few years.
