Chula Vista has secured more than $19 million in state grant funding to make critical repairs to its two oldest public libraries.
The funds will pay for several repairs to the Civic Center branch, located on F Street, and the South Chula Vista branch on Orange Avenue.
Joy Whatley, deputy director of Community Services for the city, pursued the grant funding. In a statement, she said, in part, that the upgrades will ensure that the libraries, “continue to be the nucleus of learning, culture, and recreation that they have been for decades to Chula Vista.”
The Civic Center branch opened nearly 50 years ago and receives more than 600,000 visitors per year. It will get upgrades to its electrical panels and the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system and it will get new paint on the interior and exterior of the building. Its outdated elevator will also be replaced.
Just three miles south is the South Chula Vista branch, which the city built in 1995 and which gets about 190,000 annual visits. The site will undergo similar fixes and upgrades, as well as new flooring.
Construction is slated to commence in March and planned to happen simultaneously, Whatley said. The work is expected to be completed in 2027.
Each project was granted $9.73 million from the Building Forward Library Facilities Improvement Program, which “is the largest single investment made by the state in California’s public libraries,” according to the state library’s website.
More than $487 million in grants were allocated to 278 local libraries via two separate rounds of funding this year and in 2022. The money is supporting the construction of seven new libraries, upgrades and repairs for three dozen others and expansion of programming for several more.
Chula Vista received the largest sum of funding among 34 libraries benefiting from the grant program’s second round. San Diego’s Oak Park branch on 54th Street received $9 million and was the only other site in the county to get funding in 2023. Last year, a City Heights library and one in Del Mar were awarded funding for infrastructure and communications systems upgrades.
Around the same time that repairs will take place, Chula Vista will be building what is expected to become its largest public library.
Officials broke ground last month on a 168,000-square-foot complex that will offer 60,000 square feet for the library and 108,000 square feet of office space for lease on Millenia Avenue in Otay Ranch. The $96 million project is funded by $30 million in state funding and the remainder by the city.
The South Chula Vista branch was the last library the city built. It has long needed more of them east of State Route 125, as there is only one in the area.
