After several years spent searching for a new library site, the Durango Public Library Advisory Board on Monday voted to recommend the Mason Center site to the City Council for approval./Photo by Dustin Bradford.

After several years of searching for a locale for a new library, the Durango Public Library Advisory Board firmly set its sights Monday on the site of the Mason Center. Although the decision to recommend approval of the Mason Center site to the Durango City Council was lauded by weary board members, it did not go without criticism and opposition.

The 2.5 acre site at the northeast end of East Third Avenue, bound by 12th and 13th streets, contains Durango’s only two publicly owned tennis courts, a playground area known as the Mason Pocket Park, and the Mason School, which houses the Adult Education Center and Durango Latino Education Coalition, as well as Durango Parks and Rec programs including gymnastics and karate.

The library’s original plan called for a 33,000-square-foot building and 130 parking spaces. However, that has since been increased to a 40,000-square-foot building and 160 parking spaces, said Sherry Taber, the library’s director. “The square footage was increased because we need a building to take us beyond 2020,” she said.

The Mason Center property could become the future home of the 44,000- square-foot Durango Library, although some neighbors and users of the property would like to see otherwise. /Photo by Dustin Bradford

If approved by the City Council, the new library and accompanying parking spaces would require demolition of the Mason Center, as well as leveling of the park and one if not both tennis courts. However, some nearby residents, representatives of the local tennis community and the organizations that would be displaced, say the new library may come at too high a price to the community.

“We’re all trying to let the city know that we’re just not in favor of this location at all,” said Stephanie Cooper, president of the Durango Tennis Association. Although Cooper said she is “100 percent in favor of a new library,” she said losing the Mason courts would be a big hit to the tennis community. Already, demand from her group, with more than 1,500 active members, outweighs the available facilities.

“Our organization has absolutely exploded,” she said. “Those courts were only built six years ago, and we don’t want to lose those.”

Cooper said up until last Saturday, drop-in tennis at the Mason courts was still drawing a large crowd. Furthermore, the senior tennis players reserve the courts twice a week, and the Tennis Association uses the courts to teach students from the Los Amigos tutoring program, housed in the Mason Center.

Residents, occupants speak out

Although displacement of the Los Amigos tennis program is a concern, Cooper admits that perhaps a bigger concern is that of losing a home for the program – as well as the other ones housed in the Mason School.

“The Mason Center has a lot of activities,” she said. “I don’t know where these people are going to go.”

The Durango Latino Education Coalition, which has been in the Mason School since September after being displaced from Sacred Heart Church last year, is one such organization. Deedee deHaro-Brown, director of the coalition, said although her group has been in the center only a short while, it has been long enough for her to see how valuable a space it is. “One of the things I’ve noticed is how highly used that building is,” she told the Library Advisory Board on Monday.

DeHaro-Brown also said the Mason Center is ideal because of its proximity to the homes of many of the coalition’s members as well as the Pocket Park.

“We hate losing things that are close to the Southside,” she said. “And we hate losing that playground.”

She also stressed the shortage of parking and questioned what the increased traffic flow would do to the neighborhood. “There’s a severe parking problem there, and already there’s a lot of traffic,” she said.

Cooper also has observed the traffic problem and thinks a library will only make it worse. “The library gets 1,000 visitors a day, and with a new library this would double,” she said. “That’s a huge impact.”

Carol Withers, president of the East Third Boulevard Neighborhood Association, said while the association has not formed an official stance on the issue, the amount of people the library would draw also is a concern among a number of the group’s 167 households.

“Some of the people are upset over the fact that there will be a minimum of 1,500 people a day coming into the neighborhood,” she said. “Of course we’re devastated. Would you want 1,500 people in your back yard?”

As a potential neighbor to the site, Withers said she also is worried that the metered parking at the library will send traffic spilling into adjacent streets, where parking is free, worsening an already bad situation.

“Traffic is such a problem and parking is deadly,” she said. “We can’t find parking right now in front of our house.”

However, Ed Angus, city appointee to the Library Board, notes parking is already a problem at the existing library and more spaces may actually improve the situation.

“Parking may be a problem, although it could be less of an impact than at the existing library,” he said.

Matt Kenna, another nearby resident, also expressed concern over losing the park and surrounding open space. “The open space there does get used a bit,” he said.

Kenna, whose uses the park often with his family, raised the possibility of underground parking to save the open space.

“What I want to know is, to what extent can the existing footprint be used,” he asked the board.

And although board members did not rule out the idea of below-level parking, they did not make any promises.

“It would depend on how the architect designs the building,” said Ed Angus, city appointee to the board. “But it is a possibility.”

Seeking solutions

It is this element of uncertainty that critics of the Mason site decision say is perhaps the worst part about losing the facility.

“The city said they’d rebuild the courts, but we don’t know where that will be,” said Cooper, of the Tennis Association.

However, members of the Library Board say they cannot make any promises right now because it is simply too early to make such decisions.

“We are just at the beginning stages of the planning process,” said Bob Dolphin, Library Board member and interim president of Fort Lewis College. “But I am convinced this is the place to start.”

During his nearly 20 years at FLC, as dean of the School of Business Administration and later as vice president for business and finance, Dolphin said he saw the completion of several campus buildings, and that often problems worked themselves out over time. Nevertheless, he reiterated the board’s commitment to working with the Mason Center’s occupants.

“We are concerned about displacement,” he said.

Taber, with the library, also stressed the importance of working with the Tennis Association should the Mason site be chosen by the City Council.

“We do want to work with them,” she said. “Another tennis court location would have to be found. Those courts are very special, and I understand why.”

However, she noted a solution will require participation from all sides.

“We all know how Durango is, and it’s so tight,” she said. “It’s going to take some creative brainstorming from all those involved.”

Already, several possibilities have been thrown on the table.

Cooper has suggested that one solution would be a new tennis center near the Durango Recreation Center.

“If (the city) built us a new tennis center, yeah, we probably could let go of those courts at the Mason Center,” she said. “But we absolutely do not want to lose those courts until that time.”

Other solutions include putting the displaced organizations in the existing library once the new one is built and putting new courts at the old power plant site, which was originally among the library board’s top three sites.

“Anything’s a possibility,” said city council member Amos Cordova, who attended the Library Board’s Monday meeting. He expressed approval over the latest decision and said he would do everything in his power to expedite getting the library’s plan in front of the City Council.

“I’m prepared to put up a battle for that,” he said.

Cordova was joined by at least one other elected official in praising the Library Board’s initiative.

“I’m glad to see that the Library Board is making a decision,” said newly elected County Commissioner Sheryl Ayers. “It’s time for somebody to bite the bullet,”

However, critics feel that the decision is being rushed into, and that a more comprehensive development plan should be put in place before a new library is built.

“I don’t see why all these groups just don’t come together and make a plan,” said Cooper.

Withers expressed similar sentiments.

“As a neighbor, I think it’s short-sighted to put the library here,” she said. “If this is going to be the library for the next 100 years, I wish they would be bold and less in a hurry.”

But Taber, with the library, said time is of the essence.

“It’s time for us to move forward,” she said. “We’re bursting at the seams.”