The following story comes from McKenna Hartford with Castle Rock News:

Castle Rock’s new library celebrated a construction milestone this month as it nears the expected August grand opening. Despite a sprinkling of snow, more than 100 community members gathered at the Castle Rock Library, 100 S Wilcox Street, on March 16 to tour the progress on the new building, enjoy a BBQ lunch and get details on the future space. “I want to thank all of the tradesfolk and everyone who’s putting this wonderful facility together for us,” Bob Pasicznyuk, executive library director for Douglas County Libraries, said. “We’re really looking forward to this library.” Douglas County Libraries invested around $26.5 million in the project and contracted with Centennial-based Fransen Pittman for construction. The new building will be two-stories and 42,000 square feet of public library and 20,000 square feet of library staff space with numerous upgrades from the current library, which opened in 2003 and is 45,000 square feet.“The building we’re in now was a Safeway before (Douglas County Libraries) moved in, so we had to retrofit the building for our needs, but the new library will be built for us,” Nanci Marr, marketing and communications manager for the libraries, said. The larger building is needed to keep up with the growth of the town and the demand for library resources, Marr said. Some of the main features of the new library include a kids and family space on the first floor with a ranch-themed play area, a double sided fireplace at the front entrance, over a dozen individual study rooms, large conference spaces and an archives room. There will also be outdoor amenities like an amphitheater-style seating area for storytime events, a drive-thru book drop and patio space. Marr said the current library building will begin demolition in June to make space for the new parking lot, which will include 218 spaces. The parking lot is expected to be completed in November. The current library will remain open until the May to June timeframe, when Marr said the process of moving all of the library collections, materials and the book sorter from one building to another will begin. The library is planning to host a grand opening ceremony in August.