It’s Time to Take Action on an Overdue Library

For a decade or more, San Diego’s Central Library has been known to be out of date, running out of space and long past its period of peak efficiency. It was 1983 when the Board of Library Commissioners communicated to the City Council in no uncertain terms that the time had come to do something about it.

Since then, there have been false starts and time-consuming detours down cul-de-sacs, but not a whole lot of progress toward the goal of selecting a site and a plan for a new library and figuring out how to pay for them.

As recently as 1985, momentum appeared to be building for a new library to replace the one built in 1954. The Centre City Development Corp., the city’s downtown redevelopment arm, endorsed replacing Golden Hall with a high-rise library at the Community Concourse. On a 7-1 vote, the City Council agreed that was the way to go.

But then the library became an issue in the 1986 mayor’s election. Councilman Bill Cleator persuaded his colleagues to buy the site of the former Sears store in Hillcrest and pushed it, with its ample parking lot, as the best location for the library. Maureen O’Connor, the eventual winner of the race, argued that the existing library site at 8th Avenue and E Street would be an excellent spot for a mixed-use building with apartments above the new library.

The result of these new proposals was to take some air out of the library balloon. When the council got around to establishing its priorities last year, it chose to place bond issues for improving Mission Bay and Balboa parks on the November, 1987, ballot, further postponing a decision on the library.

Now the library issue is scheduled to come back to a City Council committee next month. It is virtually back at Square One, as the only significant decision made yet is that it won’t be at the Sears site but rather somewhere downtown.

There are proposals to put it at the western end of downtown, the eastern end, the Community Concourse--but that alternative seems to have fallen out of favor--and at or near the current site.

There are proposals to help finance the project by placing either housing or office space over it.

Among these various ideas, no doubt, are some good ones. Now is the time to get down to business and sort them out.

At least three development companies have shown interest in building the library, but they can’t pursue their strategies with vigor until the council shows it is serious about taking action.

Building a library is expected to take at least four years--and that is making a rather significant assumption that two-thirds of the voters approve a bond issue in support. Until then, librarians will continue to wrestle with cramped quarters and serious electrical and plumbing problems--while the public watches seating areas shrink to make room for books.

The council members should vow that this will not be yet another false start but the final debate on a long overdue decision.