HUNTINGTON BEACH : Delays Nearly Over for Children’s Wing

After a nagging series of delays, construction of an ambitious new children’s wing at Huntington Beach Central Library is moving toward completion, with opening scheduled for Jan. 8.

The $9-million, 43,000-square-foot expansion will be the largest municipal library wing west of Chicago designed for children, local library officials boast.

It will have a 16,000-square-foot children’s wing that will start out with 40,000 volumes but will have space to grow to 80,000 volumes.

There will be a large, saltwater aquarium at the children’s entrance to the library, which overlooks Central Park from 7111 Talbert Ave. A 320-seat auditorium, five meeting rooms, a major catering kitchen to serve large groups and a book store are among the other amenities.

In addition, there will be computers, videos, a story-time theater, rocking chairs for parents and grandparents and a boat for toddlers.

“We want it to be a place that children love to come to and remember for the rest of their lives,” Library Director Ron Hayden said.

Hayden, in a sense, is putting his money where his mouth is. He and his wife, Cindy, earlier this year donated $10,000 of their own cash to the library fund.

The children’s wing, which has been planned for six years, had been scheduled to open in September, again in October and then in November, but ran into a number of delays. It must overcome yet another hurdle if it is to open as now planned.

Work crews have uncovered soil contaminated by petroleum hydrocarbons in the new parking lot across Talbert Avenue.

The City Council earlier this month approved spending $90,000 for additional soil tests and for material to cover the contaminated soil.

Library Director Hayden said no toxic material has been detected “whatsoever” and that the tainted soil poses no threat to library users.

Nonetheless, library officials must get a parking variance from the Planning Commission before opening. Although plans were for 700 spaces, the number of available spaces has been cut to 500 because of the soil contamination, Hayden said.

Previous delays were caused by contracting “errors and omissions” and then by the extra work of installing a membrane material to block off the threat of methane gas that had been discovered under the expansion area, Hayden said.

The Friends of the Library, the Library Patrons Foundation and the Friends of the Children’s Library, along with major donors, have raised about $3 million for the construction.

The library also has “borrowed” more than $5 million from an unused bond sale.