The City of Oakley has taken another step forward to bringing a new, state of the art library to the community. In July of 2022, Baker Tilly, now Management Partners, was hired to help the City prepare an initial feasibility analysis which was presented to the City Council on January 24, 2023. The City Council directed staff to focus on an option that would explore higher density, multi-family housing on the City block bound by O’Hara Avenue to the west, Acme Street to the north, 2nd Street to the east and Ruby Street to the south. The purpose of the housing portion of the project is to allow the City to utilize a Public Private Partnership (P3) model, which in this case would allow a developer to provide the City a public facility as part of a private development project. The new library would be located on the Civic Center campus, approximately in the location where the current City corporation yard sits.
The initial analysis was promising, and in an effort to continue with that work, the City hired a consulting team led by Urban Field Studio with Economic Planning Systems and HKIT Architects to further study how we can best create the most value for the O’Hara parcel and site plan the future library on the Civic Center campus. The focus of the secondary analysis was to explore further both the residential component of the project and how much realistic residual value the City could generate to help fund the construction of the new library. A variety of densities and product types were analyzed, and that information was presented to the City Council in November of 2023.
The City Council directed staff to continue to explore the project in addition to seeking funding opportunities. As part of this next phase of the project, our consultant team has prepared renderings of what the Oakley Library could look like as well as a conceptual site plan to give an idea of the potential floorplan of the facility. These renderings will be used by the City and supporters of this library effort, like the Friends of the Oakley Library, to gain support and secure funding for this exciting project.
Follow the progress of this exciting project on our Envision Oakley public engagement platform here.