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In Atlanta and Beyond, Libraries Have Some Valuable Real Estate
February 11, 2008

For all the budget pressures they face, urban libraries often sit on some valuable real estate, property that should get even more valuable as social conditions and energy costs foster continued urbanization. (An article on urbanization and the decreasing value of McMansions in March issue of The Atlantic is headlined The Next Slum?) For example, my profile of the District of Columbia Public Library last June cited the value of the city's library properties and community concern about whether the library was in the sway of developers. The New York Public Library recently sold its Donnell Library property, but questions remain, as LJ Editor-in-Chief Francine Fialkoff recently wrote, about whether the library got the best deal for its prime real estate.

An article in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution tells the fascinating story about whether the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library's hardly antiquated Buckhead branch, built in 1989, should be sold to a developer who would raze it for a mixed-use development. The county would get $24 million, of which little more than a fifth would be needed to build a replacement library. 

To some extent, such a project makes sense--cities thrive on increased density, and the Brooklyn Public Library, for example, is considering new mixed-use projects in place of one-story buildings. But those in Brooklyn are architecturally pedestrian; the Buckhead branch, while eliciting mixed reviews from locals, is considered internationally to be avant-garde gem. The developer says he could build around the library if necessary. The library board is taking it all under consideration.

Posted by Norman Oder on February 11, 2008 | Comments (0)