Plan for Carlsbad Library Moves a Page Closer

Carlsbad library administrators are concluding negotiations with developers to build a $10.2-million library, North County’s largest, to serve the region’s growing number of readers.

If the negotiations between library administrators and Carlsbad Retail Associates end successfully, a 6-acre lot will be cleared to build a 58,000-square-foot library within a proposed shopping center.

Carlsbad Retail Associates, a partnership of two Costa Mesa-based developers, Johnson Wax Development Corp. and F. T. Von der Ahe Co., have purchased 28 acres in the city’s southern corner, with hopes of building the Plaza Paseo Real shopping center near El Camino Real and Alga Road.

Besides housing the new library, the proposed shopping center is expected to include a post office, a supermarket, retail stores, restaurants, a movie theater and outdoor plazas, said Mitch Brown, the project’s development manager.

Site ‘Focal Point for City’

“The trend during the last 10 (to) 15 years is to make them as accessible as possible,” said Cliff Lange, the city’s library director, of libraries. “And, when it comes to accessibility, a shopping center is hard to beat. This site has an excellent mix of uses. . . . It will become a focal point for the city.

“The driving force behind the construction, simply, is that we’ve run out of room in the one we’re in. Plus, the community has added a few more people,” Lange said about Carlsbad’s growing population--now nearing 60,000.

Library administrators hope the library will open in early 1992, but, before such a schedule can be met, several hurdles need to be cleared.

Although both parties envision the land sale, at an additional $1.2 million, proceeding moothly, the project still needs approval from the City Council, which is expected to review it in February or March. The project must also receive the blessing of the Coastal Commission, because the property falls within a coastal zone.

According to Lange, the city’s residents are voracious readers. Statistics show that residents have been checking out books at an impressive rate and have overwhelmed the city’s two existing facilities: the 24,600-square-foot Carlsbad City Library on Elm Street and its 4,500-square-foot southern branch at the Plaza de la Costa Real shopping center, at La Costa Avenue and El Camino Real.

During 1986-87, the Carlsbad City Library, which holds 160,000 volumes, had the highest per capita circulation rate in the state, Lange said. That number is arrived at by taking the total number of items checked out from the library during the year (704,257), and dividing that by the population. The result shows that Carlsbad residents check out 12.74 items from the library each year.

Such use has driven the demand for construction of the library, which will be paid for by the sale of bonds and by fees collected from developers, Lange said.

He said the city will also apply for state funds from Proposition 85. The measure, approved last November, sets aside $75 million for the construction of public libraries statewide.

Once completed, the 58,000-square-foot library will hold as many as 250,000 volumes. The only other North County libraries close in size would be the Escondido library, which has 39,492 square feet, and the one now under construction in Oceanside, which will have 30,000 square feet.

Inadequate Service

Concerns about inadequate service became apparent to Carlsbad library administrators when the library master plan was completed in 1986. The master plan, which outlined strategies to serve readers, found that Carlsbad’s northern residents were receiving adequate service from the existing library on Elm Street.

But, in contrast, insufficient service was being provided in the city’s southern end, Lange said. The master plan called for the construction of a major library for South Carlsbad.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to serve the book-hungry appetite of south city residents, a bookmobile and a branch office were put in operation. But such facilities have been overwhelmed.

“At first we had a bookmobile that went down there, but that became inadequate,” Lange said. “We’ve been operating the branch for five years now. We just put in more shelves . . . (but) the collection just grows.

“By the time (we’re) ready to move . . . we’ll be bursting at the seams.”

New Facility in Great Demand

With nearly 1,800 people visiting the Carlsbad City Library each day and 400 more daily visitors at the southern branch, which holds 28,000 volumes, a new library is in great demand, Lange said. Under the proposal, the new library would replace the branch library, while the existing Carlsbad City Library would remain open.

The passage of the Carlsbad Growth Management Plan in 1986, which called for the development of public facilities, including libraries, reinforced administrators’ plans to build a new library.

A site-selection committee was established and, after nearly a yearlong search, negotiations with Carlsbad Retail Associates began.

The need for greater library service is well-known by Councilwoman Ann Kulchin, who served on the site-selection committee.

“Right now all we have in the southern end of the city is that small storefront library,” Kulchin said. “With the advent of the growth-management plan, we made the building of public facilities a priority. The library ranks right up there.”