Beaumont Library District is Growing with You!

Beaumont Library was established as a “special district” by public vote in 1911 and is independent of city and county
government. It has a 5-member elected Board, a dedicated property tax income, and a 60-square-mile service area,
including Beaumont and Cherry Valley, with over 65,000 residents.

After operating from a rented location for three years, a $10,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie helped provide the district
with a permanent facility built and opened in 1914. It is the last operating Carnegie library, as well as the oldest public
library continuously operating from the same facility, in Riverside County.

The library is bounded on the west by California Avenue, on the north by 8th Street, and on the east by an alley. The
building was enlarged only once, in 1965, when the service population was 6,500. With the rapid growth of housing that
began in the late 1990s, the need for more space became apparent. Over the years, property to the south along
California Avenue was acquired by the library for potential expansion.

More than twenty years ago, with input from the community, ideas for renovating and expanding the library, while
preserving the Carnegie structure, were developed. Providence Associates completed a Facilities Needs Assessment
Study for the Library in 2006 that established the need for significant building expansion.

A preliminary study on the cost to upgrade the library structure was prepared for the California State Library by the
Stanford Center for Longevity in 2011. Beaumont Library District retained Dewberry Architects in 2012 to create a building
program that was completed in January 2013.

The Library then began work with the California firm, PJHM Architects, and nationally known library design specialists,
Engberg Anderson Architects that culminated in a 2014 master plan with a variety of features, including a 250-person
capacity meeting room, and a single-ground level entrance facing the parking lot.

This plan was overly ambitious in size at 48,000 square feet, due to erroneously large population figures from the state
that have been corrected. Also, the way libraries are designed has changed significantly since that time. Library facilities
have become less book-centric with more emphasis on community spaces and e-resources.

Both PJHM and Engberg-Anderson were reengaged in 2021 to downsize the building's footprint to about 32,000 square
feet while modernizing the design. Work on schematic design was completed soon thereafter by PJHM and the process
of finalizing the design and schematics was done by Engberg Anderson in 2022.

When the California State Library announced infrastructure grants in late 2021, Beaumont Library applied for $10 million in
“Building Forward” funding in early 2022. Not knowing whether a grant would be awarded, the Library Board decided in
August 2022 to place a construction bond Measure M, on the November 2022 ballot.

In September 2022, Beaumont Library was notified it was to be awarded a $4.8 million infrastructure grant. Measure M
received a majority vote in November, but it did not reach the Proposition 13-required two-thirds level.

Beaumont Library applied for an additional $5.1 million of infrastructure funding in Round 2 of the State Library’s “Building
Forward” grant process, but that application was unsuccessful. Fortunately, however, a $1 million ARPA construction
grant was later received through Riverside County in 2023.

Due to construction costs rising during the Covid pandemic period and with less funding available than expected, it was
necessary once again to reduce the planned facility size. With public input, Engberg-Anderson Architects came up with a
single-story facility of approximately 25,000 square feet.

The documents needed to seek construction bids for a design-build project were completed in late 2023 and C.W.
Driver was selected to complete the work along with TSK Architects. The continued inflation of building costs brought
down the size of the proposed expansion which was refined to about 20,000 square feet in 2024.

The final project will take place in two phases. Beginning in early 2025, Phase I will expand the building by approximately
9,000 square feet and almost double library space. It will feature an all-new children's room, a teen area, a conference
room, state-of-the-art public restrooms, a large community room that can host up to 100 people, and a garage to house
our brand-new Bookmobile. Phase II will update and preserve our historical Carnegie Library which celebrated its 110th
birthday in 2024.

Background

Scope of the project

Phase I (Mar 2025 - Jan 2026)

Phase II (Jan 2026 - Jun 2026)

Phone Number: (951) 845-1357

Address: 125 E Eighth St Beaumont, CA 92223

Website: mybld.org

Email Address: info@mybld.org

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