Syracuse, N.Y. -- Onondaga County Public Library’s Petit branch in the Westcott neighborhood is set to undergo a $2.2 million expansion next year that will include a long-awaited community room.
The proposed community room will include a kitchenette to support both public organizations and library programs, an OCPL official said.
“We would host story times, kitchen programs,” said Rebecca Gilbert, a library operations administrator. “But it would also be available to the public to use for their own ideas, creativity and whatever they want to bring to the community.”
The library, which handles the most checkouts and holds in the system, is one of two branches without a meeting space. Gilbert said the new room can handle upwards of 70 people.
Children’s programming is a priority for Petit, as the branch averaged 50 to 70 people at each event during the last decade. But, Gilbert said, Petit’s lack of an enclosed space makes it difficult for the rest of the library to function normally in a distraction-free environment.
The $2.2 million came from a mix of grants from the state and Onondaga County, which date back to 2017. The state put in about $600,000 and the county put in another $1.6 million.
Construction is expected to begin in spring, with bids going out in January, according to Gilbert.
Gilbert said that the library may need to temporarily shut down at some point during construction for two weeks to a month.
She said one of the hopes with the addition is that it will pay off for “generations to come.”
“Anytime an investment is made in one of our buildings, you’ll see dividends paid for that for a hundred years to come,” Gilbert said.