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Beacon Hill is eager for its new branch library
Tuesday, June 15, 1999
By ALAN SNEL
In the summer, they open both the front and back doors to the Beacon Hill Library to cool off the book joint. It's as hot as an oven in July and August at the 15th Avenue South facility in Seattle.
And when it's not steamy inside, it's overcrowded. The former variety store just doesn't have enough space to handle its diverse patrons.
"It's really, really cold in the winter and very, very hot in the summer," said area resident Tina Young, whose four children use the tiny library. "It's abysmally small."
No wonder Seattle library officials have chosen Beacon Hill as the first branch library to be built as part of a construction package Seattle voters approved in November. The 3,200-square-foot library is considered the poster child of the branch projects.
So this evening, Beacon Hill residents will have the chance to meet the five architectural firms vying to design the new 10,000-square-foot, 30,000-book library. A site will be picked in autumn, with the new library debuting in 2001. Construction and design will cost about $4.7 million.
The Beacon Hill architect selection process has quietly unfolded in the shadow of the mother of all selection processes -- the headline-grabbing competition to design Seattle's new $156 million Central Library.
In fact, 26 architects applied to design the Beacon Hill facility, nearly as many as the 29 applicants who vied to draft a blueprint for the main library, which is to open in 2003.
A 10-member Beacon Hill panel pared the 26 hopefuls to the five finalists who will chat with area residents at a session set for 6-8 p.m. at the Beacon Hill Library.
The firms are Boyle Wagoner Architects, Carlson Architecture & Planning, Integrus Architecture, Northwest Architectural Co. and Portico Group.
"I would like it to be as children-friendly as possible," Young said. "It is long overdue. There are so many people who use the facility."
Alexandra Harris, who oversees the library's capital projects, says the Beacon Hill Library has not changed since the 1970s, when she lived two blocks away while attending architecture school at the University of Washington.
The Seattle Library Board is expected to choose the Beacon Hill architect Monday.
The architect will have to design a building that can accommodate a diverse cultural and ethnic patron base, said Diane Cowles, acting team leader overseeing the Beacon Hill and Columbia branches.
"Beacon Hill is a happening place," Cowles said. "It's changing a lot."
P-I reporter Alan Snel can be reached at 206-448-8029 or alansnel@seattle-pi.com
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