City Re-Opens Newly Renovated Belmont Library

Mayor Dwight C. Jones joined the Director of Richmond Public Library Harriet Coalter in a ribbon cutting ceremony today to reopen the newly renovated Belmont Library at 3100 Ellwood Avenue.

“I take pride in celebrating the new renovations, additions and exciting features of Belmont Library,” said the Mayor. “Investing in our City’s future through infrastructure upgrades and enhancing educational enrichment opportunities, such as those offered in our City libraries, is vital to the success of our City’s future generations.”

New library features include lighting, carpet, furniture, computers, an enlarged meeting room, teen area, and a new parking lot entrance. Renovations also included a Green Building Council approved roof system and new heating and cooling system to reduce the building’s carbon footprint. The library was originally constructed in 1956 with recent renovations beginning in the winter of 2010.

Mayor Jones first announced the library renovations in March 2009 during his biennial budget proposal to City Council. More than $9 million, over the term of the project, has been set aside to complete renovations to all City libraries. Renovations to the North Avenue Library and Westover Hills Library were completed in 2010 and the newly renovated Hull Street Library opened in August of this year. Renovation funding is provided through the “Building a Better Richmond” fund of the City’s Capital Improvement Plan.

New to the Belmont Library is the availability of Nook Simple Touch Readers. Funded by the Richmond Public Library Foundation, the Library's eReader project allows library patrons to borrow one of 36 Nook Simple Touch Readers. Each City library branch has four eReaders, which are preloaded with current selections from genres such as best-sellers, mysteries, and urban fiction.

Library patrons may reserve an eReader at any library branch or through the online catalog on the library’s website. Searching the catalog for the word Nook will bring up a list of all available eReaders. To check out an eReader, patrons must have a valid library card and photo ID, and be 18 years of age or older.

To celebrate the Belmont Library reopening, overdue fines on books and materials returned to the Belmont Library, from September 13 through 17, will be forgiven.