In this month’s newsletter: District signs lease on new Gunbarrel branch to open next year; New NoBo Library grand opening set for June 29; Four new Board Directors and a new staffer join our Foundation; Gala tables almost sold out; KGNU’s Radio Days comes to Canyon Theater; Teen volunteers sought for Summer of Discovery; Plus, library news you may have missed.
See below for a message from our Executive Director, Chris, or view the full May newsletter here!
Dear Library Enthusiast –
If you live in or near Gunbarrel, we have some library news that you and your neighbors have been waiting generations to hear.
The Boulder Public Library District will open a new branch in the heart of Gunbarrel next year. It will be located across from King Soopers shopping center in the former 1st Bank building, at 6500 Lookout Road.
The Boulder Public Library District’s Trustees approved a lease on the new building on Tuesday. The work will now begin to convert the empty, 10,000 square-foot building into a library. Library leadership anticipates the new branch will open around May of 2025.
A Gunbarrel library is a goal of the current 10-year Library Plan, and was a “ballot promise” central to the 2022 Library District campaign.
David Farnan, Director of the Boulder Public Library District, recommended the board approve the location.
“It is in the heart of town center,” he wrote in a memo summarizing the opportunity. “It has high visibility along Lookout Rd and is across the street from the busiest location – King Soopers. It has nearly 10,000 square feet of space, a sizable parking lot and minimal modifications associated with making it library ready. It is also our intent to use a portion of the space to off-set some of Carnegie Library for Local History’s immediate storage needs for at least 4-5 years, perhaps longer.”
First constructed in 1975, the building was remodeled in 2015. The Library District will lease it for $150K per year. Maintenance and insurance are budgeted to cost $41K. The library anticipates one-time capital costs of $1M-$1.5M for books, furniture, computing, an automated sorter machine, shelving, and some minor modifications to the building to accommodate the sorter and staff workspace. These funds were approved in the 2024 Library District budget.
Interested patrons can take a virtual tour of the building here.
We at the Boulder Library Foundation would like to thank our community’s voters and taxpayers, who made this new branch possible through passage of the 2022 Library District ballot issue.
The future is coming, and it’s full of good books in libraries that are free and open for all.
Yours in reading,
Chris Barge
Executive Director
