Expansion and Renovation Project Updates

7/1/2022

Things are starting to really come together as we get closer to our Ribbon Cutting and Grand Opening on Monday, July 11 at 12pm.

Today’s excitement was the delivery of new furniture! These comfy reading chairs will be in place on the first floor and in the second floor lobby. We can’t wait until everyone gets to try them out!

The library will be closed on Monday, July 4 and Tuesday, July 5. Curbside Pickup and phone services will not be available through July 10, but Summer Reading will be available in the original Carnegie library building Wednesday and Thursday from 1pm – 7pm and Friday and Saturday from 1pm – 4pm.

Click here for more details about opening week!

5/20/2022

The new main entrance to the library is coming together! While the Spring Street entrance will remain in use when the expansion and renovation project is complete, this new entrance off of the parking lot will be our primary entrance.

5/6/2022

The expansion and renovation is expected to be completed in late June/early July of this year! We’ll be releasing our grand opening plans in early June, so be on the lookout for the details about our weeklong celebration!

Our newly remodeled and expanded building will include a drive-up window and book drop on Spring Street, a 125 seat capacity Community Room, a reading terrace, an all-new children’s area, first floor Reference services, bottle filling stations, and many new surprises!

Although the building is currently closed to the public due to construction, our staff is available to help! Many services are still available with Curbside Pickup, including materials borrowing, reference, photocopying, printing, faxing, scanning, and notary!

4/9/2022

Ohio State Representative Joe Miller stopped by this morning for a behind the scenes tour of the expansion and renovation project as we wrap up National Library Week! Pictured here with Library Administrator Don Dovala in what will be our new Community Room and event space, Representative Miller had a chance to see how hard crews have been working on the project!
It’s another busy day here at the Amherst Public Library! Masonry work is nearly completed on the exterior of the expansion and the interior is almost ready for drywall! The existing first floor is being freshly painted and new flooring is being installed in the Spring Street entrance.

As always, our staff is here to assist you in any way we can! Just give us a call at 440-988-4230 to put items on hold or schedule for notary, faxing, or photocopying services through Curbside Pickup.

3/10/2022

The first floor of the library is being prepared for renovation! The existing Circulation desk will be removed, along with the wall behind it, and that area will be the new home to our Adult services department with our Information desk and public computers! Circulation will be located in the new addition, right by the new entrance from the parking lot.

3/4/2022

What a difference a month makes! The first picture was taken during the first week of February, and the second picture was taken today! This new part of the building will house adult collections on the first floor and the new Community Room on the second floor.

Reminder: The library will be closed Monday, March 7 through Sunday, March 13 due to the expansion and renovation project and will reopen on Monday, March 14 with Curbside Pickup and digital services only. Click here for more details: https://amherstpubliclibrary.org/final-construction-phase/

2/17/2022

We will be entering the final phase of our expansion and renovation project during the first full week of March! During this final phase, we will have a limited number of physical items available to borrow, limited services, and the building will be closed to patrons. Please click here for details and information about what services will be available.

1/28/2022

Did you catch the sight of the big trucks at the library yesterday? Workers were pouring the subflooring on the second floor expansion!

1/21/2022

Here’s a few more behind the scenes photos of the addition from this week. These areas on the second floor will become our community room and an outdoor patio!

1/14/2022

Renovation work on the second floor is in full swing! 

The second floor will be home to our children’s, tween, and young adult collections, as well as our new Community room. In these pictures, you can see the new children’s area starting to take shape. We can’t wait until it’s ready for our friends to explore!

1/8/2022

Our Library Administrator Don Dovala had a chance to tour the addition construction site yesterday and snapped a few behind the scenes photos!

1/1/2022

Enjoy short video slideshows of the progress of our expansion and renovation project from July through the end of 2021. We’re excited by the progress and we can’t wait to see it completed in 2022!

Follow the links below to view the videos on our YouTube channel!

12/17/2021

There was lots of exciting progress on the construction site today! Early this morning, the first steel beam was installed! Throughout the day, more and more of the building began to take shape! This area will eventually be adult collections on the first floor and the brand new Community room on the second floor.

These pictures show the progress throughout the day.

12/10/2021

The first floor has been poured! Check out these before, during, and after photos of the work! Once this is cured, crews will be able to begin working on the structure of the new addition over the next few week. Stay tuned!
Beginning Monday, December 13, the second floor will be closed to patrons as we prepare for the floor to be renovated. Public computers, printing, and faxing will be located on the first floor. Limited collections from our children’s, tween, and young adult sections will be available to borrow on the first floor, along with fiction, non-fiction, large print, and magazines.

Don’t forget that your Amherst Public Library card also gives you access to thousands of downloadable books, audiobooks, movies, CDs, graphic novels, and magazines with Libby/Ohio Digital Library, Hoopla, and Tumblebooks (For kids!). Download the apps for free from your device’s app store, or read and stream directly from your computer! Our Reference staff is happy to help set up the apps on your handheld devices, or give you a quick tutorial!

11/11/2021

If you’ve been by the library lately, it’s hard to miss the two-story holes in the façade of the south wall. Here’s a slightly different view of them, from the inside!

The first picture is taken from the area next to the elevator that once housed Child Paperbacks and the second one is taken from the area on the other side of the elevator that was home to Children’s DVDs and Easy Readers.

A bonus third picture shows the area that used to be home to the restrooms and a portion of our non-fiction collection! Updated restrooms, including a brand new family restroom, will be built in the same area.

Circulation staff member Abigail Andino and our wonderful friends who have stopped by to help are almost finished with the multi-panel mural on the second floor. This artwork is temporary, so be sure to visit the second floor and view it while you can!

10/21/2021

Our expansion and renovation project is rolling along! The foundation has been laid and weatherproofed, and bit by bit, workers have been removing the bricks of the outer wall over the last week. If you haven’t already, check out our video slideshows showing the project’s progress from July through the end of September. (See the 9/30 update for links!)

With a help from some of our friends, our resident artist, Circulation staffer Abigail Andino, has been working to brighten up the temporary wall on the second floor with a beautiful multi-panel mural of our best friend Quarry Bear on some amazing adventures! Stop by the second floor to see this work in progress anytime the library is open!

9/30/2021

It’s the end of the second full month of construction and we’re so excited about the progress! Check out our YouTube channel for video slideshows of the progress as seen from the parking lot and Spring Street.

Parking lot video:https://youtu.be/6ZTDLKmghWc
Spring Street video: https://youtu.be/y3OICDSoUkU

9/17/2021

Progress continues on the expansion and renovation project! The temporary walls are completed on the inside, and the foundation is growing on the outside! This week crews have been working, inside and outside, on preparing the outer wall for removal. 

9/3/2021

As the second full month of construction begins, the excitement has moved indoors this week! Workers have been building temporary walls on the first and second floors, in preparation for the upcoming removal of the outer wall.

8/27/2021

Crews have spent the month of August clearing out the area where the addition will go and pouring the foundations! This week, we also had movers inside the library to move shelves out of the way to make room for the temporary wall. Next week, workers will start putting up the temporary wall! Please note, the first floor public bathrooms will not be available once the temporary wall is in place.
We are learning so much during the process of our expansion and renovation project! This week we all learned that concrete mixers can be controlled by remote! Check out a short clip on our YouTube channel. Can you believe that there’s no one in the driver’s seat in the video? The vehicle is entirely controlled by the man holding the blue control box!

8/6/2021

Construction crews have been hard at work at the library this week! Demolition work was started early Monday, removing sidewalks and part of the parking lot to prepare for the addition. Storm sewer work necessitated the intermittent closure of Spring Street during the week and the road is now reopened. Expect things to look a little different outside every time you visit the library! Lots of work left to go!

Check out a video of Monday afternoon demolition highlights on our YouTube channel.

7/28/2021

Construction work has begun!

Due to necessary utility work, the sidewalk between the parking lot and the Spring Street entrance may be closed intermittently through next Wednesday (8/4). The Spring Street entrance is open!

The library building will remain open to patrons and our convenient Curbside Pickup service is available. Please call the library at 440-988-4230 with any questions or to place items on hold. You can also log into catalog.amherstpubliclibrary.org to place items on hold. Please note: Curbside Pickup locations may change due to construction needs.

7/23/2021 

Thank you to everyone who attended or watched the live broadcast of our Groundbreaking Ceremony on July 21! We are all very excited to begin the next chapter of our history and grateful for the support of our incredible community. 

In late June, Vivid Flight Media visited the library for a pre-construction fly-through of the building! This video is the “before” and we’ll have Vivid Flight Media back in the spring for an “after” fly-through, so stay tuned!

View the video in HD on our YouTube channel.

7/15/2021

Our parking lot will remain accessible for patrons and staff to park vehicles, but the parking lot entrance to the building and the outdoor book drops will no longer be available beginning Friday, July 16.

Please use the Spring Street entrance and book drop. Books can also be returned inside at the Circulation desk. The building will remain open to the public during our regular business hours!

7/9/2021

If you’ve been in the library recently, you may have noticed that we’ve been boxing up books as part of the preparation for our expansion and renovation project. Many books will remain on the shelves throughout the project, but in order to make room for the construction, some books will be moved into storage.

Don’t worry, all of the books that we’ll be putting into storage for the duration of the project will all be back on the shelves come next spring, when the building is completed! In the meantime, if there is a book you would like that isn’t on the shelf, please check with our 2nd floor Reference staff. We may be able to order the book for you!

In case you missed it, our Library Administrator Don Dovala sat down with The Chronicle-Telegram’s Jason Hawk earlier this month to talk about the book storage and to give the latest updates on our expansion and renovation project. Check out the article here.