Carolyn DiPaoloBond to help pay for $150 million public space could appear on November ballot.
A 150,000-square-foot public library could replace Palm Beach County’s main library in suburban West Palm Beach.
Voters may be asked as early as November to approve a bond issue that would help pay for a $150 million library and the next multiyear phase of the library system’s building and renovation projects.
The main library, known locally as the Summit Boulevard library because it’s on a stretch of publicly owned land on Summit across from the president’s Trump International Golf Club, is one-third the size of the planned building. It opened in 1972 as the library system’s first public building. Today, the county has libraries in 18 locations, an annex building and a bookmobile.
The building has reached the end of its useful life, library Director Doug Crane told county commissioners Feb. 4 at a budget workshop.
It is also the smallest main library among the six biggest systems in Florida, library staff research shows, even though Palm Beach County is the state’s fourth-most populous county.
“A new main library would allow us to provide a level of service that the public expects from one of the leading counties in the United States,” Crane said.
Despite statewide pressure to reduce property taxes, county commissioners directed Crane to come back with proposed language for a ballot question that ask residents to approve a bond issue to help pay for the new building. The bond, if approved, would appear as library debt on their property tax bill.
“Any time you have the ability to educate the richest, the poorest, the youngest, the oldest, you’re doing a duty of service to all of us,” County Commissioner Maria Marino said. “Anything that we can do to support you in your endeavors, I think, is important.”
Bigger and better
The new center is envisioned as a two-story building with a distinctive architectural design. It would be built just east of the main library. The old library would stay open during construction and ultimately be demolished to add parking.
The building would offer community meeting space for up to 600 people and an outdoor parklike space for play, study and events.
The library would be a technology center with a recording studio and AI lab. Conference rooms would offer video and smart boards.
The building would include museum exhibit display space.
Work conducted at the library’s annex building on Cherry Road in Westgate would move to the new main library, Crane told commissioners. And the system would give up that building.
Who would pay
If the question is placed on the ballot, the ones who would see it are voters who reside in the unincorporated area and 24 municipalities in the Palm Beach County Library District. They are the property owners who would pay the additional tax.
The cities, towns and villages in the district are: Atlantis, Belle Glade, Briny Breezes, Cloud Lake, Glen Ridge, Greenacres, Haverhill, Hypoluxo, Juno Beach, Jupiter, Jupiter Inlet Colony, Lake Clarke Shores, Loxahatchee Groves, Mangonia Park, Ocean Ridge, Pahokee, Palm Beach Gardens, Palm Beach Shores, Royal Palm Beach, South Bay, South Palm Beach, Tequesta, Wellington and Westlake.
Through an agreement between the county library and some cities and towns outside the taxing district, residents can also get a free library card if they live in Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Lake Park, Lake Worth Beach, Lantana, North Palm Beach, Palm Springs, Riviera Beach or West Palm Beach.
Any child attending school through 12th grade in Palm Beach County can borrow library materials.
Property owners in the district will pay $51.64 to the library district for every $100,000 in taxable value this year, which will raise $93.5 million of the library’s $121 million budget.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature have vowed to have several measures on the November ballot to limit the amount of property taxes paid by owners of homesteaded properties. If those measures pass, non-homesteaded property owners likely would be forced to pay more.
In an interview Friday with Stet News, Crane said he wasn’t yet ready to share the amount the library department will propose for the bond issue.
The library expects 2.6 million visits this year. In the 2025 fiscal year, patrons borrowed 8.8 million physical and electronic materials and had the opportunity to take part in 13,000 free library activities.
“Libraries are one of the few third spaces in our community,” Crane said, referring to a place where people can go that is not home (first space) or work (second space) but a place to connect, learn and build community.
County Commissioner Marci Woodward, who ran the budget workshop, had the last word on the subject.
“I do want to make sure that all of our satellite libraries, because we’re a very large county, get some love, too,” she said. “Having that main library, it’s a jewel, but people live far, far away from that all throughout the county. I want to make sure that it doesn’t become something magnificent, and our other libraries are all kind of blah.”
Indeed, the library has plans to begin renovations at its Hagen Ranch branch in West Delray Beach and its Okeechobee Boulevard branch west of West Palm Beach as soon as this year.
I am a co-founder, writer and editor for Stet News. I am also a former senior editor at The Palm Beach Post. For 20 years, I oversaw some of the most consequential stories published by the paper, including the “Corruption County” reporting project that led to multiple arrests of elected officials. I am a member of the Leadership Palm Beach County Class of 2013. I live in West Palm Beach with my husband, Bill DiPaolo.
