Library Renovation Moving Again

The Gaithersburg Library has sat empty for more than a year, its $25.6 million renovation stymied as county officials struggled to meet strict new environmental guidelines.

Nearly a year of re-designs have finally passed muster, but not before the delays set off a growing clamor from users of one of the county’s busiest branches.

“We want our library back,” Montgomery Village resident Claudette Lease told County Executive Isiah Leggett at a forum last week. “The longer it drags out—with the price of materials today—the more it’s going to cost you and us.”

Construction was initially projected to start as early as the end of last summer. The branch had to shut down several months prior because of deep cuts to the county’s budget for libraries.

Barring further delays, the branch will have been closed three years by the time county officials cut the ribbon in mid-2013. 

Though the county is running a temporary branch in a converted storefront at Lakeforest Mall, it is less than one-tenth the original library’s size and doesn’t have community space or computer terminals.

Several of the three dozen residents at Leggett’s forum Thursday night echoed the frustration with one of the Village’s most cherished amenities.

“We’re all very unhappy that we’re sitting here looking at a library that’s still closed,” said Village resident Jeannie Powell.

The renovation will more than double the library's size, make it more inviting, provide more room for activities and community groups, and house a satellite office of the county’s immigrant welcome center.

Most of the delay traces back to permitting and design issues with new federal standards for stormwater management.

Two county agencies—the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of General Services—got bogged down in an exchange of submissions and questions and re-submissions.

DGS had to redesign the library’s stormwater plan three times: in June 2010, again in November and again in January.

DEP granted the permit in April and the construction plan was at last sent out to potential contractors on Thursday.

That night at the Northcreek forum, Leggett lamented the “disconnect” and the “lack of coordination” but vowed that the project will soon start moving.

“As with many projects in the state and in the county, some of the best laid plans are not as you intended,” he said. “We are now moving aggressively to try to get this back on track.”

The county expects to choose a contractor in September, with 18 months of construction to start by the end of October.

By the Numbers

• Original library: 33,726 square feet

• Interim library: 3,000 square feet

• Renovated library: more than 60,000 square feet on the ground floor, plus another 7,500 square feet above.

• Until Germantown Library opened in 200x, the Gaithersburg branch was the county’s busiest, with 200,000 items checked out every year.

• More than 100,000 people live within three miles of the library

• More than 70,000 card-holders live in the eight ZIP codes considered to be the library’s domain.