Education, Youth & Families
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 18, 2008
MAYOR VILLARAIGOSA GOES FOR GOLD WITH
GREEN LIBRARY IN SOUTH LA
Exposition Park Regional Branch Library is first eco-friendly "green" library in
South LA and will attain LEED Gold certification
LOS ANGELES – Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, joined by Councilmember Bernard Parks, City Librarian Fontayne Holmes, City Engineer Gary Lee Moore and representatives of the Board of Library Commissioners, LA Department of Water and Power and more than 200 community members, today opened the first “green” library in South Los Angeles – the new Exposition Park Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Regional Branch Library.
“Libraries are safe havens where we can explore the world around us,” Mayor Villaraigosa said. “The Exposition Park Bethune library will be the soul of this community – a neighborhood center where all are welcome.”
The new regional library will meet the U. S. Green Building Council’s LEED Gold standards for environmentally sustainable design, with “green” features including:
• low-flow plumbing and irrigation to reduce water use by 30%;
• high-efficiency mechanical and lighting systems to reduce energy consumption by 27%;
• recycled building materials which comprise more than 10% of the building;
• a 44-kilowatt solar photovoltaic “power plant” – owned and operated by the LA Department of Water and Power – with 480 solar panels producing more than 57,500 kilowatt-hours per year.
“This library is a model green building – a living laboratory that proves we can build in a way that will sustain us into the future,” Mayor Villaraigosa said.
The new 14,500-square-foot facility replaces a branch facility built in 1974 and will also house the Los Angeles Public Library’s 19th Adult Literacy Center, which offers free programs, tutoring and materials to improve the reading, writing, math and other literacy skills of the estimated one million Angelenos suffering from illiteracy.
Originally called the University Branch, the library was renamed in 1973 in honor of Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, an educator, racial justice activist, advisor to U.S. President Herbert Hoover and founder of the now Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, FL. A mural of Bethune by Charles White is prominently featured in the new library.
The new Exposition Park Regional Branch’s initial funding was provided by savings from Proposition DD, a 1998 library construction bond. Proposition DD rebuilt 28 branches citywide, and its successful management resulted in cost savings that funded construction of four additional branch projects.
Prop DD, together with an earlier bond, funded the largest and most ambitious library infrastructure improvement project in the nation, in which the Los Angeles Public Library rebuilt more than 90% of the City’s libraries and completed the project on time and under budget.
The Los Angeles Public Library serves the largest urban population of any library in the country. Its Central Library, 71 branch libraries, six million books and state-of-the-art technology provide everyone with free and easy access to information and the opportunity for life-long learning. For more information, visit the Library’s Web site at www.lapl.org.
The new green library advances the Mayor’s vision for a sustainable Los Angeles, which includes a private and public sector Green Building Plan, integral parts of the Mayor's Green LA Plan unveiled in May 2007. The aggressive and bold plan calls for the City to reduce its carbon footprint by 35% below 1990 levels by 2030. The goal goes beyond the targets set in the Kyoto Protocol and is the greatest reduction target of any large US city. For more information, visit the Mayor’s website at mayor.lacity.org.
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