Feature image above: A rendering of the new Boulevard Bread location. (Rendering courtesy of CALS)
The new reopening celebration will take place on Saturday, Oct. 4, just in time to celebrate the return of the Six Bridges Book Festival to its home at Main.
The renovation features two fully new public floors, a basement and a rooftop terrace for patrons to enjoy. There are also many new features around the library, including a podcast space, meeting rooms with up-to-date technology features, kitchens for cooking classes and a stage for children’s storytime.
“People want to create a community when they come to the library,” said Nate Coulter, executive director. “A lot of things the library does give people the opportunity to connect with activities or intellectual content.”
Nate Coulter
Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects, WER Architects and Stocks Mann Architects are the three architecture firms that worked on the project.
“Libraries have changed so much over the last 20 years,” said Reese Rowland, principal architect at Polk Stanley Wilcox. “They have become more like living rooms of the community, so we really set out with them to figure out a way to draw people back to the Main Library and people who have not come to the Main Library.”
Reese Rowland
Polk Stanley Wilcox also worked on the original 1997 remodel.
“It’s always fun to revisit buildings that our firm worked on years ago, and get to create something new and identifiable and something that hopefully changes people’s perception of downtown,” Rowland said.
Amanda Sturgell, senior associate at Polk Stanley Wilcox, said the team worked to make the library easier to access and use.
“Libraries aren’t a, ‘Shhh, be quiet,” place anymore,” she said. “They’re more active.”
Amanda Sturgell
Coulter said that the COVID-19 pandemic hurt library attendance. In 2019, the library saw a record number of patrons, but 2020 caused numbers to take a massive hit. They have yet to recover fully to 2019 numbers.
“Everybody who does things in person is dealing with the reality of the postpandemic,” Coulter said.
He added that people were already living increasingly isolated lives, but the pandemic accelerated that trend.
“People are not just working remotely but living remotely,” he said.
He said with the new amenities offered at the Main Library, he expects traffic to return to prepandemic levels soon.
The architects reorganized the floors of the buildings to make books and youth spaces easier to find and use. Sturgell said every floor will open to a desk where people can easily find a librarian to ask questions. Each floor also has a different color theme to help people differentiate which floor they are on easily.
The basement, which was originally not accessible to the public, will now be the computer lab and also have offices for library-based social workers.
The remodeled Main Library Grand Opening is October 4. (CALS)
“[The library team] championed that they want to welcome anyone from the public,” Sturgell said.
A rooftop terrace has also been added, allowing people to look out over the city and stand right next to the new, large “library” sign.
Smaller details will enhance the experience of the new library even more, such as enlarged book pages that will hang on the ceiling. The pages will showcase famous and local authors’ works, as well as children’s books in the children’s area.
Also, since the interstate ramp, which used to be near the library, has been moved, the architects were able to add a lot of large glass windows during the remodel. Before the interstate moved, that much glass would have let in too much road noise, but now it is not an issue.
One other new addition to the library is a Boulevard Bread Co. on the library’s main floor.
Rowland said nowadays, libraries are competing with local coffee shops and retail spaces such as Barnes & Noble, where people go to meet or sit and read. By including a restaurant in the library, it makes it even more of a place people will want to visit, he said.
“We are super excited to be joining the CALS building,” said Christina Basham, owner of Boulevard Bread Co. “We love the library system and especially the Central Arkansas Library System. It’s very important.”
Christina Basham
The opening of this location also marks Boulevard’s return to the downtown area, where it once had a location.
“We love that area, and there is a lot more synergy and things happening down there these days,” Basham said. “It seems like there is a lot of activity, a lot more businesses.”
Currently, there are three Boulevard locations in Little Rock, including one in the South Main neighborhood, one in the Heights neighborhood and one at Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock.
Basham added that Coulter approached Boulevard while looking for restaurants that might be a good fit for the library. She and co-owner Sonia Schaefer were interested, and the plan grew from there.
“[Our goal is to] create a nice, comfortable vibe down there for people to just come and hang out and work on their laptops,” Basham said.
In addition to being part of the library, customers will be able to access the restaurant from a set of doors on the outside of the building, allowing Boulevard to set different hours than the library, ideally helping to create even more business. There will also be a walk-up window for added convenience.
Architects reorganized the interior to make spaces easier to find. (CALS)
“We think it’s a great partnership,” Coulter said. “If they succeed, the neighborhood succeeds.”
“Our hope is that it’s a nice palace to come visit and get lunch, coffee, breakfast and pastries if they’re inside the library or they just happen to be downtown and want good, quick, healthy food,” Basham added.
Rowland said the renovation will keep up with what libraries need to be in the modern day, just like the first renovations during the late 1990s did for that time period.
The reimagined library will reflect CALS leadership’s understanding that the role of libraries has changed. (CALS)
“We dove into what a library is today and what it will look like in the next 25 years,” he said.
Coulter added that the renovation will help the library remain a hub in the River Market district.
“There is a lot of confidence that people want to have a thriving downtown, and to do that, you have to give people things that they are excited and enthusiastic about,” he said.
The library and Boulevard Bread Co. will open Oct. 4. The library team will host festive activities from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. opening day.
