The long-awaited downtown library will join other branches of the East Baton Rouge Library System by offering curbside pickup service beginning Wednesday—a first, crucial step toward actually opening some three-and-a-half years after construction began.
But the River Center branch, as the North Boulevard facility is formally called, is not yet ready to open its doors to the public and likely won’t be until sometime in June.
The latest snag is a pandemic-related delay of several shipments of equipment and furniture, including one from a factory that has permanently closed, Library Director Spencer Watts says.
Watts expects most of the late shipments to arrive this week. But the shipment from the shuttered factory contained desk chairs that library staff now has to source elsewhere.
“It’s bad to have desks with no chairs,” he says.
By the end of this week, Watts expects to have a better idea of exactly when the library will be able to open, though even then it may not be completely ready.
“Once we know when everything is coming in and what is coming in we will have a better idea,” he says. “We don’t expect to have everything in place, but sooner or later we will get to the point where we say we have enough to open.”
The new library, originally conceived as the main library, was controversial long before construction began in December 2016. Even after it was designed as a branch library, critics decried it as a waste of taxpayer money. Then, two-and-a-half years into construction, a faulty weld on a beam in its signature cantilever overlooking North Boulevard Town Square caused a structural failure that idled the project for more than a year.
The library was substantially complete in late 2019 but all of the furniture, fixtures and equipment was scheduled to be installed and set up this spring, just about the time the pandemic hit.
Now that stay-at-home orders are loosening, Watts is optimistic the library will finally open in early summer. In the meantime, it will begin offering books for pickup through its main window on North Boulevard, which will eventually be the window of a planned library café.
“You can call for a book or ask for it online,” he says. “Then, we will notify you if it’s available for pickup and you can come get it through the window.”
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