Work is underway for the $42.5 million Wahiawā Center for Workforce Excellence, a 43,000-square-foot facility that includes a new public library, community college classrooms and offices for the state Department of Education. The project’s groundbreaking took place on July 28.
Aloha State Daily spoke with State Librarian Stacey Aldrich about plans for the new Wahiawā Public Library, which will occupy about 12,000 square feet of the center, according to representatives of her office.
“We're excited about having a new space, but we're also excited that we're going to be involved with education,” Aldrich said.
The new library will include a more defined children’s area, as well as outdoor reading spaces on the first floor of the facility. The center’s third floor will have computer labs and satellite classrooms for the University of Hawaiʻi Community Colleges.
“You don't know what's possible until you can see it sometimes,” she said. “I think about kids playing in the library while their parents — or their brother, sister, caregiver, friend or family member — is taking a class.”
Experiences like that help keiki learn in their own communities, she added.
Plans for the library include a space for keiki to sit and read in bookcases on the first floor, shown in this rendering. (Kiewit Building Group, Inc.) 
This rendering shows the Wahiawā Public Library, which will be part of a 43,000-square-foot facility called the Wahiawā Center for Workforce Excellence. (Kiewit Building Group, Inc.) 
This rendering shows the planned Wahiawā Public Library, which will also include outdoor reading spaces. (Kiewit Building Group, Inc.)
The new library will replace one that was built in 1965, according to representatives of the Office of the State Librarian.
While the new space is being built, a pop-up library opened within the Wahiawā Shopping Center, which is anchored by Foodland, Taqueria El Ranchero and Goodwill Store and Donation Center.
“We did a soft launch a couple weeks ago, and it'll be open until we move back into the new building,” Aldrich said. “We'll probably have a shutdown period between the moves, because we'll have to move everything into the new space, but we'll keep it open as long as we can. We're trying to make sure that the community has access to a library during this construction period, because it is a well-used library.”
The temporary space has books, places to sit, computers, Wi-Fi and some programming for keiki, she said.
Once this public library is complete, it will be in the first co-location project in the state that does not involve a school campus, Aldrich said. Currently, the library system has co-location projects at public schools. There are a dozen public libraries located on school campuses across the state.
Other library projects are in the works, including a new library for Lahaina, where the location on Wharf Street was damaged in the devastating wildfires on Aug. 8, 2023.
“It's important for us to have the space in Wahiawā,” Aldrich said. “It's also an opportunity for us to experiment a little bit. As we build new libraries, we're trying to build flexibility into the spaces. The children's area in particular, we've been really pushing to make it engaging and active so kids will have places to go sit and read in the bookcases. ... We're trying to make it a more engaging space ... where kids are excited to come and to play, and something that helps them to be curious.”
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Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.
