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A beautiful November sunset casts a glow on the Riverview replacement library, at 10003 Balm Riverview Road. The new library will have meeting rooms of various sizes and a divisible multipurpose community room that can seat up to 150 people. Designed to silver LEED standards, the building features a solar panel power system and an electric car charging station.

Riverview’s new library debut reset due to pandemic delays

By LINDA CHION KENNEY

Pandemic delays have pushed back the grand opening for the impressive Riverview replacement library, which had been set to open in late summer and now is slated to open after the start of the new year, according to Hillsborough County library officials.

“The end of summer, mid-September, those [grand opening] plans were for a pre-COVID world,” said Sean McGarvey, the library system’s division manager for support services, who noted pandemic-related delays in shipping and materials and the receipt of equipment and furnishings. “We’re shooting now for some time in the beginning of the new year.”

Meanwhile, existing libraries throughout Hillsborough County are working on reopening plans before the end of the year while continuing to provide curbside pickup and drop-off and Wi-Fi services. Libraries closed in mid-March due to the pandemic and will reopen with COVID-19 protocols in place, such as for occupancy limits based on safe, social-distancing standards and face-covering requirements.

The new 35,000-square-foot Riverview library is highly awaited in the fast-growing Tampa Bay community, a sorely needed replacement for the existing 8,000-square-foot Riverview library, at 10509 Riverview Drive. Opened in 1979 on property owned by Cargill, Inc., the land carries a reverter clause, which means ownership goes back to Cargill if the building ceases to be used for a library. (In 2011 the agribusiness giant spun off its majority stake in the Mosaic Company, which has corporate offices in Lithia’s FishHawk community.)

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“Old Florida history had it that wasps and hornets don’t build nests on things painted blue because they think it’s the sky,” said library official Sean McGarvey. “Interestingly enough, it seems to be working. We painted the eaves on the porch and the overhangs the color blue. When you come into the building there’s a covered walkway and we painted there as well. We’re extending it to other areas, around the sides of the building, seeing if painting those blue will solve the problem as well.”

The current one-room library has a 55-seat meeting room, which is not accessible after hours. The library itself is considered “obsolete.”

In contrast, the new library has a 5,000-square-foot children’s area and five spaces off the main lobby that can be accessible after hours by reservation, with an emphasis on community groups and gatherings.

Designed in what’s being called the “Old Florida Grandeur style,” the new $12.6 million library drew inspiration from vintage Florida postcards, reflecting a 1940’s coastal vibe, replete with shiplap wainscoting, bead board and ceiling fans, along with a covered and screened-in reading porch.

“I’m excited because this is a beautiful building and the designers, builders and architects have put in a lot of amazing art work,” McGarvey said. “There are stained-glass windows on the inside of the building and on some of the exterior windows, which is just wonderful and really sublime. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.”

McGarvery noted also the reading porch, overlooking “cattails, a little bit of oak trees and a watershed with overgrowth,” as well as the entrance lobby’s terrazzo floor, “River of Fire,” which features marble chips set in concrete. According to the concept sketch, the art reflects “thousands of years of fire myths and their origins, based upon the accumulation of knowledge.”

An interesting development concerns wasps and the color blue. “Old Florida history had it that wasps and hornets don’t build nests on things painted blue because they think it’s the sky,” McGarvey said. “Interestingly enough, it seems to be working. We painted the eaves on the porch and the overhangs the color blue. When you come into the building, there’s a covered walkway, and we painted there as well. We’re extending it to other areas around the sides of the building, seeing if painting those blue will solve the problem as well.”

With more than four times the size of the existing library, the new library has a unique tenant, the Greater Riverview Chamber of Commerce, whose East Bay High alumnus executive director, Tanya Doran, in an earlier interview captured the town’s enthusiasm for a library of this magnitude.

“Let’s face it, our community has grown and our community deserves a library of this stature,” Doran said. “It’s going to be a great community center, and I suspect people will drive to Riverview just to visit this library.”

According to design plans, the replacement library will have meeting rooms of various sizes and a divisible multipurpose community room that can sit up to 150 people. Designed to silver LEED standards, the building features a solar panel power system and an electric car charging station. The recording studio features two editing suites and a “green wall” open to the public by appointment. Also on tap are a vending café, Friends of the Library bookstore, “Maker Space” for creative projects and multiple types of seating arrangements with access to power and Wi-Fi.

The new library is at 10003 Balm Riverview Road, across the street from the Lakes of Cristina deed-restricted community and a quarter-mile from Riverview High School, at 11311 Boyette Road. For more information, including design plans and 360 views of the reading room and lobby, visit the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative at www.hcplc.org/locations/riverview-replacement.

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