Plans are advancing for the construction of the new Foley Public Library, slated to commence in early 2024, with an anticipated opening in 2025. The upcoming library is projected to encompass nearly 40,000 square feet, approximately doubling the size of the existing facility adjacent to City Hall.

According to David Thompson, Foley's Executive Director of Leisure Services, the new library is envisioned as more than a mere expansion of book collections. Thompson highlights its role as a comprehensive community center, featuring meeting spaces, an auditorium, computer labs, study rooms, a cafe, and a bookstore.

“One of the goals of this library is to make sure that we create an iconic library that we're proud of for the future,” Thompson said at a recent discussion of plans at the current library. “This isn't something we're just trying to build for the next couple of years. We're trying to build this for the next 10 or 20 years.”

The new library will be built next to the Foley Dog Park and south of the Post Office. Thompson emphasized the new structure will serve as a cornerstone for the downtown area.

“We want an iconic building that, when people drive by, they see it and they want to go there and it becomes a gathering place, a community place,” Thompson said. “We don't want to call it a library. We really want to call it more of a community center. We want people that are non-library users now wanting to come to this building and participate in what we're doing.”

The design plan outlines a two-story structure for the library. The ground floor is designated to accommodate a children's area and a multipurpose room. Thompson explained that the multipurpose room is versatile, functioning as both a meeting space and an auditorium. Speaking from within the library's meeting room, he expressed the need for a larger facility in Foley.

“We're really excited about that,” he said. “This is our biggest meeting room in our library. When you look around the city, we don't have enough meeting space and we are constantly booked out, not just this room, but at City Hall as well. We're trying to create a bigger meeting space that can be multipurpose so we can utilize it for different things.”

The children's area will undergo expansion and incorporate computers, along with an activity room. This space will also be adaptable for hosting storytimes for young children.

“We were very, very focused on that. We believe that the children are extremely important for what we want to do, moving forward with the libraries in the future. So you'll see a much larger children's space and what we have now,” Thompson said.

A separate area for teens will be on the second floor, Thompson said.

“It's very important for teens to have their own area,” Thompson said. “They don't want to be in the little kids area. They're not quite adults yet. So being able to create that area is something that we really tried to focus on.”

He said developing and maintaining an interest in the library is important for children and teens.

“Getting teens into the library is not an easy thing to do,” Thompson said. “So, we're hoping as we build our children's programming on the first floor, that we're able to graduate them to the second floor so that they can come in and continue to be library users not just in their teens but as adults as well.”

The second floor will also include the adult section and computer labs. According to Thompson, the upcoming design includes an increased number of study rooms compared to the existing facility.

“The advice we received was that you cannot have too many study rooms and we see that in this building,” Thompson said. “We constantly have demand for meeting rooms, study rooms and so we've created that.”

Additional facilities slated for the new library encompass a STEAM-STEM lab and dedicated spaces for programs, including those tailored for special-needs activities.

Thompson noted that while the interior plans for the new library are nearing completion, the exterior design is still under development. He emphasized the importance of ensuring that the exterior aligns with the nearby buildings in downtown Foley, which exhibit a range of architectural styles dating back to their construction approximately a century ago.

“We looked at this from a historical perspective. While it's not necessarily in our historic downtown district, we are still trying to blend it because it is going to be close enough to our historic downtown that it should blend in,” Thompson said.

He said the overall design of the building should be one that is transparent and welcoming on the outside and inside.

“We don't want a brick building where you can't see in,” Thompson said. “When we've designed the different rooms and the functions of the library, we made sure that we have windows to that so that when people drive by and they see the children's section and they have an activity going on there, they're able to look in and see the activity that's going on in the building. Hopefully people want to come in and join and be a part of that.”