Site Once Aimed-for a DC Central Library Will Be a Hotel and Retail
Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 5/15/2008
- Former mayor sought convention center site for hotel
- Martin Luther King, Jr., library needs renovation
- Could the old Carnegie Library be a solution?
Plans for a new central library for the District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL) have been dashed, at least at the site of the city’s old convention center, which now will host a hotel and retail complex. While former Mayor Anthony Williams targeted the convention center site, now a parking lot, for a mixed-use development including a $275 million library, his successor, Adrian Fenty, was cool to the idea and stressed the importance of renovating the branches.
Fenty did support the library idea as a member of the DC Council, the Washington Post reported, but said that hotel and retail stores were a better use for the site. The new project would cost $150 million, part of a 10-acre site including condominiums, offices, restaurants and shops, a half-acre park and a plaza. "It is time we start calling this place what it is, our city center," Fenty said in a statement.
Plans for a new central library are up in the air. Preservationists and some people associated with the DC Library Renaissance Project would like to renovate the current Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, designed by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; library officials clearly supported the convention center site, believing only a new project could leverage private funding. (See LJ’s 6/1/07 article on DCPL.) John Hill, president of the library board, told the Post that DCPL could offer customer service at the Carnegie Library nearby and moving administrative functions to offices across the Anacostia River east of downtown.
