Akron, Ohio, Mayor Don Plusquellic is touting a plan to build a new main library on a downtown site city officials say is in need of improvement.
"We have always looked at this block as very key to the perception that our downtown was alive and vital," Plusquellic told the Akron Beacon Journal June 18. The site, between the former O'Neil's department store and the Akron Civic Theatre, is bordered by the Ohio & Erie Canal.
Akron-Summit County Library Director Steven Hawk told the newspaper that while the original plan was to use $50 million from an $80-million bond issue approved last year to expand the nearly 30-year-old main library, a new facility would allow the system to construct a building "designed with technology in mind." However, he said, staff and architects must determine whether "we can fit our building program into that site."
Posted June 22, 1998.