Development

New library could have A&E twist

By Jennifer Deseo | Sep 18, 2008

A library project for Silver Spring’s arts and entertainment district could have some arts and entertainment in it, one local official announced.

Could be the Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center. Could be something else, Gary Stith, director of Silver Spring’s regional center, told the arts and entertainment (A&E) committee Tuesday night. The county has spoken with the Ripley District book-arts organization, though nothing formal’s gone down, he said.

MoCo exec Ike Leggett is itching to get the library’s construction rolling on Fenton and Bonifant Streets, with a planned 2010 start date, Stith explained. But the library’s size and shape will depend on what the public wants inside it. A series of public meetings to figure that out ends Sunday at the Coffield Community Center in Lyttonsville.

So far, those meetings have sprouted requests for an arts angle to the new library. According to the library department’s crib sheets, meeting participants hit up the county for a collection on the arts, a gallery or exhibit space, a small recital hall, film-screening rooms, and a little sumpin’ sumpin’ for Pyramid Atlantic.

The A&E angle was on top of requests for more computers, cooler multimedia software, earth-friendly features, cleaner bathrooms, and whatever this guy wanted.

On Tuesday, the library project’s masterminds hold another public meeting on how to fit all that stuff into 200,000 square feet of floor space. That meeting kicks it at the Round House Education Center (925 Wayne Ave) at 7:00 p.m.

Silver Spring’s A&E district shares the same borders as its central business district, stretching from Spring Street to the north, Eastern Avenue to the south and west, and Fenton Street to the east.

Lead photo courtesy of Flickr user Islandmoore.

Updated Sep 18, 2008, for hyperlinks.

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