Ocean Beach residents face nearly two years without their neighborhood library as the century-old branch undergoes a $14.45 million renovation and expansion.
The Ocean Beach Library, near Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and Santa Monica Avenue, closed Aug. 29 and is expected to reopen in summer 2028.
For local children, the closure means storytimes are no longer held inside the library and visits with its mascots, Darwin the Ball Python and DK the Bearded Dragon, are on pause.
“Most importantly, maybe, we were a third place — a judgment-free zone where anyone can just be with no expectations that they spend money,” branch manager Christy Rickey Meister said. “Everyone is welcome at the library.”
Patrons who previously selected Ocean Beach as their pickup location now retrieve holds at the Point Loma/Hervey Library, about 1.5 miles away on Voltaire Street. Metropolitan Transit System Route 923 stops near both branches.
The Point Loma branch is serving both communities despite citywide budget cuts that reduced its Saturday hours to 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Rickey Meister said library officials do not expect the reduced hours to change how they serve the community, although it is too early to know whether Point Loma will need additional staff or resources.
“As the temporary closure just occurred, we won’t know new operational needs until more data is available,” Rickey Meister said.
Some Ocean Beach programming has followed patrons to Point Loma. The Ocean Beach Book Club now meets there at 6 p.m. on the last Tuesday of each month.
Other programs remain in the neighborhood. A weekly storytime is held Wednesdays at 10 a.m. on the closed library’s lawn while staff members search for an indoor location. Library staff members are considering other meeting spaces, including the community room at the Ocean Beach People’s Food Co-op, where the branch has previously held programs.
“Some seniors just come in just to have socialization,” said Pat Wilson, president of the Friends of the San Diego Public Library, whose chapters support the city’s 37 library locations. Libraries are really community hubs.”
Wilson expects Point Loma to see more patrons but does not anticipate capacity problems. Some Ocean Beach residents may instead use the Pacific Beach/Taylor Library or another branch, she said.
“It’s a wonderful thing that we’re getting an expansion, and it’s really hard to expand a building without closing the building down,” Wilson said. “It’s not practical, and it’s not safe.”
The closure also displaced a smaller collection, measured in seed packets rather than books.
Staff encouraged patrons to take what they could use from the Ocean Beach Seed Library because the seeds would not remain viable through the closure. The remaining seeds went to other branches with seed libraries. Its painted card catalog will be stored and restocked before the reopening.
Ocean Beach residents have pushed for a larger library for years. San Diego’s first branch library opened in an Abbott Street storefront in 1916. The current building at 4801 Santa Monica Ave. opened in 1928 and was enlarged in 1962.
Plans call for renovating the 5,085-square-foot library, demolishing the adjacent two-story building and adding a 2,738-square-foot extension. Construction is expected to begin this winter and finish in summer 2028, according to the city’s current project page.
The new library will include expanded children’s and book areas, study rooms, a teen area and new restrooms. A community room will accommodate up to 100 people and open onto a patio. The Friends of the Ocean Beach Library will receive space for book sales.
When the project is completed, library staff members already have the first decoration to hang: a banner showing the front of the building that patrons signed during its final weeks open.
“While we are sad to be closed, and to not be a constant presence in the OB community for a while, it will be well worth the wait,” Rickey Meister said. “The community has been asking for this for many years, and it’s going to continue to be a very special place.”
