Detroit PL Given $5 Million Grant
for Downtown Renovation
The Detroit Public Library has received the largest single gift in its 135-year history, a $5-million grant that will allow it to renovate its downtown branch, which has been closed for two years.
New features will include a cyber cafe with 20 computers, and a children’s department. The Automotive History Collection, the nation’s largest public automotive history archive, will be moved there from the main library. The facility is expected to reopen next year, the Detroit Free Press reported August 9.
The 27,000-square-foot branch, one of 24 in the DPL system, was closed March 2, 1998, in preparation for the demolition of a former department store a few yards away, then remained closed after library officials decided to put renovation ahead of reopening. “We decided that we really wanted to bring that branch back up at a level that would be comparable to what was going on around it,” DPL Director Maurice Wheeler said. There has been significant development within a half-mile of the downtown branch in the past five years.
The grant came from Detroit’s Skillman Foundation, whose focus is improving the lives of children. The total cost of the work will be about $6 million, with $1 million coming from DPL’s budget.
Posted August 14, 2000.
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