Calabasas : City Prepares Retail Center Site for Library

Calabasas is making final preparations to move the city’s library from a tiny, cramped room in City Hall to a roomier facility in a shopping center on Calabasas Road, officials said.

Crews are working to have the new facility ready by Jan. 6, the scheduled grand opening for the 1,500-square-foot facility, City Manager Charles Cate said.

The new library site, at 23645 Calabasas Road in the Parkway Calabasas shopping center, will hold 12,000 volumes, officials said, far more than the 4,000-book capacity of the facility at City Hall.

Calabasas, which signed a three-year lease at the shopping center, hopes eventually to build a new library. But budget constraints have hampered those plans, and the library could end up staying at the shopping center indefinitely.

Officials say it will cost about $33,000 to get the facility ready for opening day. The city, which allocated $20,000 to the project from emergency funds, also has at its disposal a $100,000 donation to the library from Lockheed Corp., which this year moved its corporate headquarters from Calabasas to Maryland.