We already have an express library in downtown, and as someone who visits there often, I can vouch that it is not a concentrated area of mentally ill persons, homeless persons, or drug addicts. I have taken my eight-year-old daughter there (the girl on my shoulders in my avatar is eight now, y’all), and we have felt completely safe at all times. In fact, I have taken myself and my family to many of the Wake County Public Library’s 23 locations, and I have never once felt even the tiniest bit unsafe or encountered even a single problem from other users. It’s hard to fathom how opening a new location with more books, more space, more computers and better programming for children would cause the patronage of the downtown library to suddenly and dramatically change for the worse.
Look, folks: I can tell from the comments that some of you do not spend any time at the Wake County Public Libraries. You are all free to walk into any location in the county and see that your imagination about what public libraries must be like is completely at odds with what you experience if you actually visit one.
To be fair the downtown express library has a security guard posted in the lobby that you have to walk by to enter the library. And it’s closed during the evenings and weekends.
It seems like you’ve been watching too much of Faux News and not spending time in reality. I see homeless people in the Oberlin library every time I go and they are always calm and collected.
And guess what? The library is always crowded with other people (often with children) who seem unbothered. If seeing homeless people makes you feel uncomfortable then I’d suggest re-evaluating your understanding on life.
One high medical bill could put nearly everyone on the street and “statically” the majority of homeless people are not drug addicts.
I have some news for you about who makes decisions about what kind of security to provide at the Wake County Public Libraries. This may come as a surprise to you, even though the hint about who runs these libraries is right there in the name. (It’s not the city.)
I’m not going to waste my time but refer back to my last two sentences.
Not building public learning spaces for the sake of disregarding our less fortunate is cruel and inhumane. The richest among us have always been worse than the poorest.
you keep referring to a moore square that people are afraid to visit. i am unfamiliar with this moore square you speak of. it is one of the most highly trafficked blocks in downtown, and definitely one of the most activated with events
For general library information, the 2024 Wake County Library Bond Project list is here. New libraries planned include:
A new community library in Rolesville: Rolesville is the only municipality in Wake County that doesn’t currently have a library, and it is one of the fastest-growing communities. The design would include a Peace and Justice Memorial.
A new community library in the Friendship area of Apex: This library would help meet the needs of the area’s growing population.
Replacement of the Athens Drive Community Library: When the Wake County Public School System begins renovation of Athens Drive High School in 2026, a new library will need to be built to serve this area.
Replacement of the Wendell Community Library: The smallest library in the system is no longer adequate to serve the rapidly growing Wendell population.
Replacement of the Southgate Community Library: Replacement of this library with a larger stand-alone facility will better meet the needs of the population of southeast Raleigh.
I love all of this. In particular, it’s great to see Southgate getting its own standalone library. Relative to its population, Raleigh does not have as many library locations as the rest of the county, so building a first-rate new facility in southeast Raleigh, and replacing the Athens Drive library with a new one separate from the high school, will really help fill some of the gaps in the network. This is all great news.
I thought people knew about the library bond they voted for and approved last year. I obv voted for it but was disappointed it didn’t include a new DT central library. We know these become crown jewels of cities when done big and right (Durham, Cary, Seattle, I’m sure countless others people can post about). So for Raleigh to be missing one and for us to have a chance in the form of a library bond to ask for taxpayer funds, and it wasn’t included, was a bummer. All of the other library improvements are great and needed. But since a new DT library wasn’t in the bond, it would be hard to ask tax payers again for anything related to it anytime soon. So the remaining option is to reimagine the original municipal campus plan. If the space isn’t needed for offices (assuming it’s not), then pivot and put the library there.
I think it’s easier to sell “hey we’re re-envisioning the municipal campus 5 years later bc we don’t need all the office space and we propose a central library now” versus “hey we just approved a big library bond in 2024, but we need more money for another library because we forgot one on the list.”
I am a broken record on this but if the City renovated one of the central Dix Hospital buildings to a central library it would be an exciting project that compliments the rest of the park.
But I also like the idea of just renovating the current city hall building to suit. Or the Archive partnership, but I’d grade that as less likely bc the State doesn’t want to play nice
Way back in 2005, Livable Streets Raleigh (not to be confused with the NIMBY Group) there was talk of making a central library. I don’t remember much, but it focused on the Christian Science Reading Room location. I think the library idea faded since the Village Library renovation. Someone else probably remembers more than me.
Filling the major gaps and completing needed repairs on existing libraries was definitely the better decision to make.
Having a library included in the next tower would be great but that tower is probably a decade or two away from being built. It wouldn’t be smart to just put a library there now (2026 or later) unless it (1) could serve as a massive podium and (2) be more of a need than a new suburban library in an area without a library.
The County does things a lot differently, where they try to fill gaps and renovate existing libraries and not just build new libraries relatively near two other libraries.
The bottom line is if Raleigh really wanted a downtown library and pushed for it, Wake County would make it happen. Raleigh could team up with Wake County in a similar manner that Cary did to get their new Downtown library. It just never seems to be a real priority for Raleigh.
But it was a bond! All we had to do was write it in. It’s not like there were existing funds and now we’re making the most of them (renovating existing libraries). There was a chance to swing (and maybe miss) but we didn’t even swing.
I assume they were afraid of sticker shock if the ask was too big and that’s why the bond landed where it did. There was far less (any?) public engagement around what to include in the library bond than there was with the parks and affordable housing bonds a couple years prior. That’s why I’m disappointed.
No I’m not talking about a library in a tower. I am already jumping the gun and assuming that more towers will not be needed on the city hall block anytime soon or ever, and there will be a pivot. I want the pivot to be to a library. Even so, the proposal was for 3 towers, so reducing 1 frees up space for something else. I also think Dix park is an interesting idea for one. Not central but would function similarly since people from all over the city come to Dix. And ofc, yes there would have to be an offset. Something would have to give among the 3 nearby libraries (village district, express, & Harrison) to make this make sense on paper.
@TedF This is typically a need based decision instead of a “want” based decision. Considering the other libraries in the downtown-ish area, there doesn’t seem to be a need for another library but a limited public request for one.
@StreetviewRDU There doesn’t seem to be any plan in place for them to have included it in the bond. You need bare-bone plans, a cost estimate and location set in stone for this.
Also, with the projected 1.2 million more residents coming to the Triangle (900k or so in Raleigh) by 2055, there will definitely be a need for another 17 story tower. Dix park is probably a better near-term location to consider.
As @DavidDonovan mentioned above, don’t sleep on the Express Library location on Fayetteville just north of Davie.
I’m an avid reader and happen to be in easy walk distance from the Oberlin branch in the Village District (which both the 12 and the 16 GoRaleigh busses can get you within a short block away).
But I rarely browse shelves as Wake libraries have a good online Hold and internal Transfer system that tracks your position on the Hold list, reports when it is in transit, and will hold your book (or audiobook) for pickup for a week.
The important thing is having a branch for pickup and return. And DTR has that now.
If you follow the link to the County site you see the “Goal: Increase the number of Wake County residents who have a public library within a 10-minute drive of their home.”
That spells it out, the County is more interested in broader access to libraries versus having a showcase venue.
And sure, Raleigh could do something on their own. But the likely reality is that they have no desire to get into the business of running libraries when the County already does this. Standing up a new library “system” is a lot more cumbersome that simply adding one library to an existing system, so the cost for Raleigh to do it would be far greater than if the County did. But again, doesn’t appear to be a County priority. Of course, you can reach out to commissioners to voice your opinion if you wish.
Downtown appears to be split between Commissioners Tara Waters and Susan Evans. I feel certain that the new Southeast Raleigh Library (Southgate replacement) is a priority for Commissioner Waters.
This is correct. The county has a distributed network (regional hubs and neighborhood branches) so there’s not a lot of appetite for a “main library” given the current system. there MIGHT be some interest in a DTR children’s library (ideally paired with Marbles expansion) but even that would be a lift.