Storyline
How Chapel Hill planned and built a new public library between 1984 and 1992: the 1986 library bond, the Estes Drive site and Pritchard Park, the land the town moved to acquire, the failed 1990 bond, the smaller 27,000-square-foot building and the 1992 construction contracts.
In briefChapel Hill voters approved $4 million for a new public library in 1986, and planned it for Estes Drive beside a new town park, Pritchard Park. When voters turned down $3 million more in 1990, the building was cut from 47,000 to 27,000 square feet. The council approved its permit in 1991 and awarded the construction contracts in June 1992. The new library opened in Pritchard Park in May 1994. The council weighed a museum, offices and other tenants for the old building on Franklin Street before agreeing in September to let the Chapel Hill Day Care Center use it rent-free.
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At a Town Council forum on October 3, 1984, a member of the Friends of the Library board urged money for a new Chapel Hill library, saying the library held one book per person and circulated eight; the council took no action. On November 4, 1986 Chapel Hill voters approved $4 million in bonds for a new public library as part of a bond referendum they passed in full. In January 1987 residents urged the council to build the library downtown rather than in a suburban location, and the council agreed to form a committee of library leaders, community members and town staff to help choose a site.
By 1989 the future library and a town park were to stand near Estes Drive. On April 10, 1989 the council authorized the town manager and town attorney to acquire 2.63 acres with three houses bordering the site, by negotiation or by eminent domain; Town Manager David Taylor said the land was needed for access and design flexibility. The owners called the town's appraisals too low, and one, who is Black, told the Daily Tar Heel that few Black residents owned land in Chapel Hill and that he would ask the NAACP for help. In July the council paid for a $16,000 study of whether residents would pay the remaining $3 million for a library then expected to cost $7.8 million, and Mayor Jonathan Howes called the present library outdated. On November 13, on its library building committee's advice, the council voted 6 to 3 to put $3 million more on the ballot in November 1990; the committee now put the total cost at $7.9 million.
On February 12, 1990 the council approved a master plan for the library and Pritchard Park northwest of the Franklin Street and Estes Drive intersection, with an amphitheater, nature trails and picnic areas; a family had given $100,000 for the park. On September 10 it voted 7 to 2 to keep the library bond on the ballot, since the library board's study called for a building of at least 47,000 square feet, and, citing the weak economy, voted against street and parks bonds. On November 6 voters turned the bond down, 8,346 to 8,129, and the town was left to build the 27,000-square-foot library the 1986 bonds paid for.
In February 1991 the architect showed the council site plans and three exterior designs for the smaller building, with room to grow by 2000. On April 8 the council voted 8 to 0 for the special use permit, with a single entrance off Estes Drive and only emergency and service access from Michaux Road after neighbors and the transportation board objected to traffic; it voted 7 to 1 against Nancy Preston's proposal for a second entrance from Velma Drive. On June 8, 1992, with bids lower than expected, the council unanimously cut the library's capital budget by $76,200 to $5.4 million and awarded the construction contracts, the largest to Forterra Corporation for $2,084,491, with work to start later that summer. Howes, who chaired the library committee, credited recession-era labor costs, and the council heard that the library trustees objected to using library bond money to widen Estes Drive.
By April 1993 a public arts committee had chosen the new library for its first sculpture project, funded in part by a $3,000 gift from former Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Preston. On October 25 the council voted to begin negotiations to bring the Chapel Hill Historical Society, for a local history museum, and the Orange-Person-Chatham Mental Health Authority, for offices, into the old library on East Franklin Street. On February 28, 1994, after two hours of debate, it voted 6 to 3 instead to lease the old building to the UNC-system Principals' Executive Program for three years, and on April 25 it appointed a Chapel Hill Museum Study Committee. The old library closed on May 5, and between 2,000 and 3,000 people came to the open house on May 22 for the new one, designed by Gary Giles and Josh Gurlitz as a library within the woods of Pritchard Park, with 120 parking spaces in place of the old site's 28. When UNC found it could not lease the old building, the council voted 6 to 2 on June 13 against a five-year lease to the mental health center and reopened bidding. On September 12 it voted to negotiate a lease letting the Chapel Hill Day Care Center use the main floor rent-free until its new building at Southern Village was finished, putting off the Historical Society and the museum committee until they could pay their share of utilities and cleaning.
Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 19 dated events in the chronology →
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Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.
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Program for the dedication of the Chapel Hill Public Library on Sunday, May 22, 1994, at two in the afternoon. Four unnumbered pages with illustrations, issued by the library. The subject is the library itself, so the item is best understood as ephemera from the day, printed for the people who attended.
A 1994 Chapel Hill News piece on the new home of the Chapel Hill Public Library and the path that led to it, issued as a folded sheet of four unnumbered pages with illustrations and a plan. Topics include the library, its Friends group and Quakers, and nothing further is recorded about the text.
A seventy-nine minute videocassette of a lecture on the mission, programs and issues of the contemporary public library, recorded for the course LIBS 243 on January 19, 1987. Topics include public library administration and children's libraries in Chapel Hill along with the Chapel Hill Public Library.
Program for the twentieth anniversary celebration of the Chapel Hill Public Library, held Sunday, December 10, 1978, at two in the afternoon. A folded sheet of four unnumbered pages with an illustration, it carries a brief history of the library on pages two and three. Topics include public libraries in Chapel Hill in the twentieth century.
North Carolina ECHO project photograph of the Chapel Hill Museum building from outside, taken 30 May 2002.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
A second display on the North Carolina Symphony's history at the Chapel Hill Museum, one of the photographs taken there on 30 May 2002 for the North Carolina ECHO project.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
North Carolina pottery on display at the Chapel Hill Museum, photographed on 30 May 2002 for the North Carolina ECHO project.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Civil rights exhibit at the Chapel Hill Museum, tracing the town's own struggle for civil rights, in a photograph taken on 30 May 2002 for the North Carolina ECHO project.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Jonathan Howes, a former mayor of Chapel Hill who served in Governor Hunt's cabinet and later worked in the UNC chancellor's office on urban planning, gave this illustrated talk on the past and future of the Chapel Hill campus. Cassette, 1998.
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