Westgate Library Celebrates its Reopening
The newly renovated Westgate Branch is now open
On Sept. 18, the Ann Arbor community was brought together to celebrate the reopening of the Ann Arbor District Library’s Westgate Branch. The newly renovated 21,000 foot library replaces the former 5,000 square feet branch, which was the oldest Ann Arbor District Library opening in 1977.
“The community has waited so long for the west side to get an upgrade on their branch,” Kelly Konarske said, who has been working at the library for 13 years. It took a lot of people and effort but it turned out really nice.”
Konarske mentioned that she already noticed more people were coming in and sitting down to talk and read at the library.
Josie Parker, the director of the Ann Arbor library system, hopes that this library will continue to do what it is doing today, “bringing people in and using it in all the ways it was designed to be used,” Parker said. “It’s a place to learn, a place to read and study. It’s a place to relax, a place to recreate and I think this library will be able to do all of that.”
Parker’s favorite part of the library is the amount of people coming. “Lots and lots of people, that’s my favorite part.”
In the newly renovated space, one can find many people and a helpful staff. They can also find, a kids area, public computers, a reading room, a stroller corral, several meeting rooms, Sweetwaters and plenty of books waiting to be read.
Ann Arbor resident Laurie Johnson loves all the open space and seating that this new space creates as well as the convenient outlets located by all the chairs. “I feel like it is really modernized to keep up with technology,” Johnson said. She also mentioned that now that the library is renovated she would definitely be spending more time reading and socializing at the library.
The Westgate branch is also the first Ann Arbor public library to have a local coffee shop, Sweetwaters, inside the Library. One of the Sweetwaters founders Lisa Bee is so excited to be part of the library. “We love being part of the community and this is truly exciting for us,” Bee said. “We just hope to be a part of more community events. There is going to be story time and educational programming, which we hope to be a part of. So we are just very excited.”
The library is located at 2503 Jackson Ave and is open every day of the week.
