Madison Branch Library Key Element of Villager Mall Renovation

Link to January 8 Capital Times article, "Rallying Around the Library".

Excerpt: It’s just a dark and empty space now, barely visible through the windows in the deep red façade on busy South Park Street. But by the end of 2010, the ground floor space in the new Urban League of Greater Madison building should be alive with users of the South Madison Branch Library, and the $700,000 fundraising campaign it took to build it completed.

With about $435,000 pledged or now in hand, the private fundraising effort has a ways to go. But neighborhood residents, library patrons and the Madison Public Library Foundation say that with grass-roots fundraisers from garage sales to cocktail parties, traditional appeals and major donations from businesses and foundations, they are confident they will meet the goal by year’s end.

A new, expanded South Madison Library branch is a key part of a multi-million-dollar renovation of the Villager mall intended to make it a hub of activity in the struggling neighborhood located just north of Park Street’s interchange with the Beltline.

South Madison interior plans on Flickr.

Additional renderings.