We are planning for the future! Now by “future” I don’t mean the immediate future. We are planning for the immediate future such as the Book Sale and the Summer Reading Program all the time! What I mean is the Distant Future…maybe up to ten years out. Maybe more.

How are we doing that? The first step to that plan was done when this building was designed and built. Many of you may not realize that we have a basement under the rest of the Library. At the moment, that basement is used for storage for the Library and the Museum. The basement is also used every year by Emergency Aid for staging their Angel Tree project. However, the main reason for that basement is so that when the Library needs to grow, we can grow right into the basement without having to build another building. We just have to finish off what has been started.

The second step of planning is our capital improvement fund. Basically, that is a fund that we put money in every year, saving for that future expansion. When we do need to move into the basement, we will need to finish it off, and that will cost money. And, as you can imagine, we will once again be coming to the public to ask for help paying for the expansion through another tax levy. The good news is that, because we have our capital improvement fund, we won’t have to ask you to help us with the full amount of that expansion.

Another step we have taken is to work with the City of Boulder City to take advantage of a provision in our land lease agreement. The voters gave the City permission to sell the land on which the Library sits to the Library. That purchase was completed last summer.

At that time, the City re-drew our parcel map to give them land closer to the gym and to give the Library the land on which one of the old cottages sit (perhaps better known as “The Wrestling Building”). When we expand into the basement, we will need more parking for the building.  That bit of land will become an additional parking area.

In fact, in the next few months we will begin the process of razing that building and clearing that land so we won’t have to face those expenses when that future date arrives.

Visit the Library at 701 Adams Boulevard.