Ground to Be Broken Today on New Library

Groundbreaking ceremonies for a larger, updated Studio City branch library will be held at 3:30 p.m. today.

The new library at 4400 Babcock Ave. is scheduled to open sometime next year, said Rachel Conger, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles library system.

Mayor Richard Riordan, Councilman Mike Feuer, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and city librarian Susan Kent will turn ceremonial shovels of dirt to signal the start of construction as local schoolchildren and members of the community look on, Conger said.

“It’s going to provide the community with a 21st century library,” said Peter Presic, a spokesman for the library.

Library officials considered the old facility too small and outdated, so it was demolished last month, Presic said.

In December 1997, the Los Angeles Public Library Cultural Affairs Commission approved the architectural designs for the new 10,500-square-foot building. It’s twice the size of the original 1963 structure that occupied the site, Conger said.

The new library will cost an estimated $3.5 million and will be funded by Proposition I, a library bond approved by city voters in 1989, along with money from the city’s parks and transportation departments.

Some of the building’s amenities will include a children’s room and computer stations with Internet access and noise-absorbing walls. The 38-space parking lot and grounds will be lined with elm and oak trees.

The Studio City library was the ninth-busiest in the city’s library system of 67 branches and four bookmobiles, Presic said.