A renovation of the Boston Public Library’s Roxbury Branch finished Tuesday, nearly three years after the project began.
The undertaking came after years of BPL branch assessments that determined the location did not meet the needs of modern library-goers, according to BPL President David Leonard, who said the new layout of the library puts a focus on the community room.
“We think it’s spectacular,” Leonard said. “Really taking a concrete building and warming it up, adding lights, adding color, adding wood finishes all to give a sense of welcome in the architecture.”
The space now offers a learning lab with computers and “very flexible” furniture for comfort, as well as a nutrition lab that serves as an industrial kitchen to be used for nutrition classes, Leonard said.
“That’s in addition to the traditional services of lots of computers for people to access,” Leonard said, “and, of course, books, which are at the 30,000 volume level in the new location.”
The Roxbury Branch, formerly the Dudley Branch, is the largest in the BPL system, Leonard said.
The library is closed for public browsing and computer use due to the pandemic, he said, and this is the case for all BPL locations. However, library card holders can check out and return books to the location through its BPL To Go service.
The library hasn’t set a reopening date and will make decisions based on City guidance, Leonard said.
Michael LeBlanc, principal at Utile, the architectural firm that designed the renovated branch, said his firm wanted to create a welcoming environment at the Roxbury branch.
The firm saw opportunities for the space to become more humanistic and warm, LeBlanc said.
Brett Bentson, associate principal at Utile, said visitors to the renovated library will find the space familiar but transformed, with a new emphasis on natural light.
“You can look outside and make eye contact with your neighbors, you can see blue sky, you can see green trees,” Bentson said. “That is going to be a transformative experience in that branch.”
Bentson said the firm worked with several City departments on the renovation, which included replacing traffic lanes with bike lanes and building a public plaza in front of the branch.
King Boston, a nonprofit working to commemorate the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., also partnered with the BPL on the project.
Imari Paris Jeffries, executive director at King Boston, said the new design celebrates Black history.
“Boston has been a bastion of civil rights, women’s rights, Indigenous rights in a way that I think the country has not known,” Paris Jeffries said. “To have a library in our historic Black community and an archive that illustrates Boston’s rich history is important.”
Paris Jeffries said the renovated library will serve as an archival home for collections of African-American texts, because the Roxbury Branch has been a significant reservoir of these works in Boston.
“To have the Boston Public Library be a partner to the King Center feels appropriate in this moment in time, as we illuminate the strength of the public and democracy,” Paris Jeffries said. “We’re excited because of our commitment to public institutions leading the way.”
