A proposed General Obligation bond is on that ballot that would provide $26 million to build a renovated and expanded Thomas Branigan Memorial Library in Las Cruces.Scott Brocato talked about the proposed GO Bond with Lynda St. Clair, president of the Friends of Thomas Branigan Library; and Sarah Booth, Deputy Director of the Las Cruces Public Libraries.
Scott Brocato:
Let's talk about the library 2026 General Obligation, or GO, bond proposal. What is it asking for voters to approve cost-wise, and what will it provide for the library? Who wants to start?
Lynda St. Clair:
I'll start with the cost-wise because that's easy. It's A $26 million General Obligation bond and it does not raise property taxes. It does say in the thing that it is paid by property taxes, but those property taxes have already been levied, and the city has bonding capacity so that there's no need to increase the property taxes at all. And the things that it will be paying for are incredible. And I'll let Sarah talk about that.
Scott Brocato:
All right.
Sarah Booth:
Okay, so in 2024, October 2024, the City Council approved a master plan by our library consultant. And since that time, we've been working with architects to design a building. And what we've got is that we've got a beautiful building that was built in 1979, but it doesn't have the capacity that we need it to be. So the architects have taken the design elements from our current building and just modernized it and expanded it.
So our current building is 44,000 square feet. We'll be expanding to an additional 20,000 (square feet) for a total of 64,000 square feet. And what we've got is, if you've been in the library, you'll know that the first floor is a split level first floor, and we're going to be leveling it out. So it's going to be one floor and we're going to be removing those dividers. And that alone is going to give us 2,000 extra square feet.
We're also going to be expanding the children's area out into the current amphitheater that is unable to be used at this time. And we are going to have a beautiful atrium lobby that's going to be where the current stairway to nowhere is.
Scott Brocato:
What programs will be added with this expansion?
Sarah Booth:
Well, one of the things right now is that in our current building, we have our children's programs, which are very, very popular. We get over 100 people in our children's story times multiple times a week. Those are taking place in our public meeting room, the Roadrunner Room. And that Roadrunner Room fits 100 people. So in the expansion, there will not only be a separate story time room for youth services programs, but that we will have a expanded Roadrunner room, which will seat 200 people, and it will be able to be divided into two parts. So we can actually host more community programs that way, as well as keep our very popular children's programs.
We currently have two small, very small, study rooms, and we'll be expanding that to ten study rooms of different sizes. We currently have two very small maker spaces. We have a technology maker space that has 3D printers and laser cutters, and we also have a craft maker space with our sewing machines. We're going to keep those. You have larger areas for those and expand to any what might be interested to this. We're going to have our own podcasting studio. So it's going to be a podcasting recording studio that people can come and use.
Scott Brocato:
And will this enable to also increase the amount of books and reading material you have? Is that part of the plan?
Sarah Booth:
Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's the main part. So the way the building will be configured, it will allow for more shelf space. And not only will it allow for more shelf space, our current shelving is not ADA compatible. And also the shelving is 90 inches tall. So we can't really use the top two rows of the shelves. So it's just way too tall. So we will be getting new shelving that will allow people to reach the bottom and the top in a wheelchair.
Scott Brocato:
How long is this expected to take, the construction?
Sarah Booth:
Hopefully 18 to 24 months.
Scott Brocato:
And what's going to happen with the library itself? Is it going to be in operation?
Sarah Booth:
Oh, absolutely. And that's a really good question. We're getting that question quite a bit. So what's going to happen is that the library will go into a temporary location, and we are looking at temporary locations.
Scott Brocato:
So that hasn't been decided yet?
Sarah Booth:
It's been decided, but we can't talk about it yet because it's sort of it's not confirmed.
Lynda St. Clair:
Yeah, so until the GO bond passes, they're very careful about making any public commitments about what's going to happen.
Scott Brocato:
What have been some of the arguments against it?
Sarah Booth:
Well, Lynda, do you...? Lynda's heard most of us.
Lynda St. Clair:
In going out and doing some outreach events and talking to the public, there actually have been very few arguments against it. One person did say that they didn't want to expand the library if they couldn't get an expanded parking lot, if there wasn't more parking space. And understandably that's a concern, but the library does have the required number by state law and regulation or everything. And there are a few times when it does get a bit overcrowded, but that's usually because there's something else going on at City Hall or something else, and most of the time there are enough parking spaces available and there are empty parking spaces. I'm in that parking lot a lot so I'm pretty aware of that. So that's kind of been one issue that people raised.
Another thing that came up was one person, one of the nice features for some people in the atrium lobby, is they're planning to have a coffee shop that would be contracted out most likely to a local coffee vendor, and one person said she didn't think there should be a coffee shop in the library. One person did say they thought it was just far too much money and it shouldn't cost that much. And I think that it's probably gonna cost more at the end of the day because prices keep going up.
Scott Brocato:
Is it costing less than just building a whole new branch?
Lynda St. Clair:
Absolutely. And one of the things that the master plan initially looked at was actually doing the renovation and expansion in two separate phases. And fortunately, the city council agreed that was not the most cost-effective way to do things, because if you split it up, then you have...and try and keep the library inside the building while there's construction. There are a lot of hazards with that. So they worked very hard to come up with a construction plan, and the design and construction plan are very much "This is a shovel-ready project." We're not talking about, "Oh, we're going to start figuring out what to do now." They have designs and floor plans and all that stuff is already out there. And that's been paid for by money from the city as well as state money that's come through the capital outlay process.
Scott Brocato:
Why a GO bond rather than the city, effectively, funding?
Lynda St. Clair:
(Laughs) Well, it's very, very expensive. This is a lot of money. And it's very typical. Most municipal major projects like this that are in the millions of dollars are funded through General Obligation bonds.
Sarah Booth:
And we do realize how expensive this is, and we're not taking this lightly. But this would be such a tribute to the city and to Mrs. Brannigan, who started the library.
Scott Brocato:
Anything else either of you would like to add that we haven't discussed?
Sarah Booth:
I would like to add something, if that's okay. So just for a little history of the library, because I think it's interesting, maybe it's just me.
So in 1932, Mrs. Alice Branigan passed away, and she left some (money) to the city to start a library. And the first library was built--still standing--it's the Branigan Cultural Center downtown that people can still go in and you can still see it feels like a library.
And then in 1979, the city was growing and the city built our current building. And renovating this building would be such a tribute to Mrs. Branigan and all she stood for literacy and for growing the community. And I would like to say that we're still using the funds that Mrs. Brannigan left us today to purchase books and materials. So she's left an outstanding legacy to the and this is really a beautiful tribute to her.
Scott Brocato:
And Thomas (Branigan) was her husband?
Sarah Booth:
Correct. Yes, he was, sorry.
Lynda St. Clair:
Yes, she wanted the library named after her husband. That was her decision, but the money actually came from her estate in his honor. And I think that one point that Sarah made briefly there that should be emphasized is the city has grown so much since the library was built back in 1979 that we, even with this expansion, we're really not going to have as much square footage and space as one would expect to have for a city of our size.
And the fact is, it's not just a city library. This is truly a regional library, because a lot of members of the board of the Friends of the Library, for example, live in Dona Ana County, not in Las Cruces. I happen to be one of those, but I use the library all the time. And there are plenty of county residents who use the library.
And the library has online services that people, no matter where they happen to be, can be checking out books from the Libby app. They have a library mail service, so some people get books by mail to them. So there are a lot of services that really make this a regional library more than just Las Cruces.
Sarah Booth:
And I'd like to add to what Lynda said. So our library consultant said we should have one square foot of space per resident, and the state library says that per the last census, we have 111,385 residents, so we currently have 44,000 square feet. We do not have enough space. And we have two very small micro branches in the Munson Senior Center and the Sage Cafe Center, but those add up to 1,200 square feet.
So we are way behind in what we need, and this renovation would only get us to 64,000 (square feet). So we're still behind, but this will be a good start. And then after this renovation, in the future we could consider building a large full-service branch in a different part of the city.
