The ribbon cutting ceremony for a new play area outside the Main Library in downtown Santa Ana was nearly set. City officials just needed some kids for a photo op.
But the kids couldn’t wait for all that official stuff.
As soon as they were allowed into the play area Tuesday, March 15, more than a dozen boys and girls immediately scrambled onto a new colorful climbing structure that marks the beginning of a major renovation project for the downtown library.
The new “Play and Learn Children’s Patio” features a unique climbing structure as well as outdoor reading areas designed to offer children more space for interaction and discovery.
Library Services Director Brian Sternberg said it’s the first step toward modernizing the Main Library while also restoring some of the historic touches and original layout that was lost during a remodel in the late 1980s and early 90s.
The new vision for the library, Sternberg said, is to blend “traditional public services with a new brand of innovative and interactive play and learning spaces that the entire family can learn from and enjoy.”
“We’re trying to take the spirit of some of the interactive learning in places like Kidspace (Children’s Museum) in Pasadena and the Discovery Cube in Orange County,” Sternberg said. “Not to compete with those, but to incorporate that type of learning into our programs and spaces.”
To remain relevant, libraries need to shift from passive places to interactive ones, he continued. “And we’re also building community. That’s what public libraries are all about.”
At the same time, the remodeling at the Main Library will “restore a lot of the original layout and feel of the library,” which was built in the late 1950s and opened in 1960.
The tab for the library’s new patio and playground was approximately $884,000, Sternberg said. Santa Ana’s cannabis tax revenue funded the work through a “public benefit fund” that supports, among other things, parks as well as services for youth and seniors. Cannabis taxes also will fund a $1.1 million renovation project planned for the Newhope branch library.
Meanwhile, the $7 million Main Library project will be paid for from the “Revive Santa Ana” program funded by pandemic relief money. Some additional grants may fund other renovations at the Main Library. Other projects in the works are a bookmobile that will kick off this summer in local parks and schools and a future outdoor public library at Jerome Park.
“The future of public libraries,” Sternberg said, “is providing a space where the community can come in – children, moms, dads, aunts, uncles, grandpas, grandmas, caregivers of all ages – and participate in activities together and learn together.”
Orange County Register photographer Jeff Gritchen contributed to this report.
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