New library coming after long wait

Friday, Dec. 7, 2007 | 7:28 a.m.

Maybe they will name it the It's About Time Library.

North Las Vegas is looking for a name for a library that will be built near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Alexander Road.

The call for bids is out. The plans are solidified. And the doors are expected to open in early 2009.

Thus may conclude a years-long debate about when and where to open the second and third libraries in one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States.

In 2005 it seemed the site in a working-class neighborhood along Alexander Road would be home to the second full-service library in the city. It would have been the first opened in the city in 40 years.

But it never happened.

Instead, the city focused on a location in Aliante, one of the new master-planned communities that have been helping the city rid itself of the downscale image it carried for decades.

Some residents felt it was symbolic of a long-standing divide in the city: The new areas always seemed to get all the good stuff and the old ones had to wait.

Despite those complaints, the $5.2 million library on Deer Springs Way was built. Aliante's developers had donated land and cash for books as part of a development agreement. (Aliante's developers include the American Nevada Company, which is owned by the Greenspun family, owners of the Las Vegas Sun.)

And so it would be a few more years before the folks living in the older sections of town got their new facilities.

The 4.5-acre plot on Alexander Road had been donated in the mid-1990s. But there was no cash to build a library on it.

"I've known about the land since my son was in third grade," said Deborah Lewis, a resident who pushed for the library years ago. "He's a junior in high school now and it's still not built."

The library district board, made up of City Council members, will borrow money from the city to build the 16,000-square-foot building. The cost has not been finalized but will be similar to that of the Aliante library.

"I felt very strongly that the city made a commitment and we needed to follow through," Councilwoman Stephanie Smith said about building the next library. "That was a promise we made."

A fourth library in the city of more than 215,000 might come as part of a development agreement with Park Highlands, a new master-planned community in the northern section of the city.

"When you're talking about this one and the Park Highlands one, we'd be doubling from two to four," said library director Kathy Pennell.

Lewis, having already waited a long time, remains somewhat skeptical of the new plans. She will believe there is a library in the area when she sees it open.

"I really, really, sincerely hope they do as they have promised," she said. "There's a lot of people in this area with desperate need for a library. There's a lot of people here who don't have Internet access."