Wake County will replace Southgate Library with a bigger, standalone branch in Southeast Raleigh, the board of commissioners decided at a work session earlier this month.
One of the smallest libraries in the system, Southgate Library is currently located in a Food Lion shopping center off of Rock Quarry Road. For years, patrons have complained about the cramped space and limited parking. The county now plans to replace it with a 12,000 square- foot, free-standing building in the same neighborhood.
Commissioner Tara Waters, whose district includes Southgate Library, said during the work session that the community she represents includes many young people enrolled in Title I public schools who deserve access to a high-quality public library.
“There is a strong tie between economic prosperity and literacy, and if we don’t make books available to school-aged children and to their parents, we’re not going to see any gains in those communities,” Waters said, adding that her constituents “felt left out” of consideration when Wake County voters approved a $142 million library bond last fall that did not include any money for Southgate.
At the work session, the commissioners were tasked with deciding how to spend about $19 million in unallocated funds from the library bond. They could have chosen to either replace Southgate or build a new “digital equity center” dedicated to technology and skill building.
After discussing both options, the commissioners decided that Wake County is too big and decentralized to benefit from a single digital equity facility, although they all agreed that public libraries have a role to play in fostering digital literacy and expanding access to technology for Wake residents.
District 6 commissioner Shinica Thomas, who championed the digital equity center concept during the bond referendum process, said she is excited for the Southeast Raleigh community and doesn’t have hard feelings that the Southgate project is taking priority right now.
“It was never my intention in talking about digital equity … to have one stand-alone building in the middle of downtown Raleigh or wherever, but to make sure that we had space in our libraries for advanced technology and skill building,” Thomas said during the work session.
Octavia Rainey, a longtime community activist who represents Southeast Raleigh on the Wake County Library Commission, advocated replacing Southgate with a stand-alone library for years leading up to the 2024 bond referendum. She says she is proud and excited about the commission’s decision.
Rainey recalls how in her final conversation with former Wake County District 5 commissioner James West, who died in 2023, he urged her not to stop fighting for Southgate Library.
“I went to James West’s grave and I told him … we did it,” she says..
Wake County’s lease on the current Southgate Library location extends into 2028, county staffers told the commissioners during their work session. It will take several years to identify and purchase land for the new library, design it, and construct it—a process that will happen simultaneously with other library construction projects funded by the 2024 bond. Based on those considerations, the county expects the new and improved Southgate to open its doors sometime in 2031.
Chloe Courtney Bohl is a corps member for Report for America. Reach her at chloe@indyweek.com. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.