San Diego County will begin work to replace the Lakeside Library next year with a 16,400 square-foot building three times larger than the current branch, county leaders announced Wednesday.

The new building will feature a community room for events, a bookstore and spaces for children and teens.

“Libraries are not just a place for books anymore,” said County Supervisor Dianne Jacob. “They’re a place for children to do their homework. They’re gathering places. And a lot of resources will come into this community as a result of the new library, because it will be bigger and better.”

County officials said construction is expected to start in spring 2021 and be completed in summer 2022.

The Board of Supervisors voted to buy the land to build the new library in September 2017, when Jacob called it a project “near and dear to me and many folks in Lakeside.”

The new library will be built just a few blocks away from the current branch on Woodside Road near Channel Road.

The new $19 million facility will be a be a solar-powered zero net- energy building, with a 2,000 square-foot community room with seating for 150 people. The community room alone is a little less than one-half the size of the current 5,000-square-foot Lakeside library built in 1962.

In addition to the community room, the new library will include five study rooms, a conference room, a patio, a Friends of the Library bookstore and public art. It will also feature automated book returns, a laptop kiosk, an audio-visual system and digital signage.

County Library Director Migell Acosta said the community room will be able to be used for numerous types of events: cultural, musical, dance, educational and lectures.

–City News Service

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