SAN RAMON — Nancy Kreiser has been busy lately, being not only a librarian but a construction supervisor, of sorts, as the city’s newly renovated and expanded main library has taken shape.
It’s been a scramble leading up to the facility’s grand reopening after 20 months and $6.48 million of work.
“It’s been a busy time … it’s been the most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my work life,” said Kreiser about the library, its ribbon set to be cut April 15 amid great fanfare.
The “new” library doesn’t look dramatically different on the outside from the one that closed in August 2015, and the building retains essentially the same-sized physical footprint at the corner of Bollinger Canyon Road and Market Place.
There is a new entrance facing Bollinger Canyon Road, said Nicole Blazin, the city’s marketing and public relations analyst.
But inside is another story, so to speak.
“There is virtually no public space here that’s been untouched,” Kreiser said. What had been essentially a one-story building with a high ceiling now has a full second story with study rooms, music listening spaces and computers, designed with teenagers in mind.
“Inside, things are very different,” Blazin said. “You walk in now after seeing it before (the work started), and you’re totally disoriented.”
The new student-friendly appointments were identified by many people as a priority during studies and surveys that started in 2012 led by the Library Advisory Committee. In the almost five years since then, the committee and its members from county library staff, city staff, the San Ramon City Council, the Parks and Community Services Commission and the San Ramon Library Foundation have pushed hard to bring everything together.
The library now includes not only a larger volume of volumes, but an expanded public meeting/community room, and will be more computer- and device-friendly as well, Kreiser said. Case in point: Most of the library’s chairs have their own USB ports. A vintage Wurlitzer jukebox — stocked with 45-rpm vinyl singles of various genres — will be connected via Bluetooth to the music listening rooms.
“It’s an incredibly wired building,” said Kreiser. The music, she said, will include the library’s extensive collection of jazz sides — one of the largest such public collections in the United States, she said.
The library renovation and expansion was paid for mostly with money from the sale of city-owned buildings on Camino Ramon (including the old City Hall), said Steve Piersol, San Ramon’s support manager. The city owns the library building, he said, and leases it to the county library system.
The renovation was an alternative to building an all-new library, which was estimated to cost $18-$20 million. City Councilman Phil O’Loane said there was some initial disappointment the city didn’t go with a new library, but said it wasn’t financially prudent.
“That vision never included how it was going to be paid for,” O’Loane said.
The existing location works into the city’s overarching plan for a vibrant area along Bollinger Canyon Road; the new City Hall is across the street from the library; Iron Horse Trail crosses Bollinger Canyon Road a few hundred feet away; and the Bishop Ranch business park is immediately to the north. And by the end of 2018, the massive City Center residential/commercial development will open a short distance to the west.
“These are all now within walking distance of each other, and everything will be a little more accessible,” Piersol said. “Everything is tying together.”
IF YOU GO
• When: April 15 — Ribbon cutting, 10 a.m.; new library opens, 10:30 a.m. Family-friendly music by Bingo Schwingo, 11:30 a.m.; The Fratello Marionettes perform “The Frog Prince” at 1:30 p.m.; Python Ron and his reptiles at 3:30 p.m.; Star Wars “Stormtroopers” on hand all day. Closes 5 p.m.
• Where: San Ramon Library, 100 Montgomery St. (corner of Bollinger Canyon Road and Market Place)
• Cost: Free
