Denver Central Library Reopens to Public After Three-Week Closure

The Denver Central Library, which closed on January 22 so that public services could be relocated from one side of the first floor to another, will reopen today, February 14, and some of the fencing around the library has already been removed.

The closure was part of the extensive renovation of the Denver Public Library's main branch, designed to revamp the library's layout and how people interact with the rooms. Existing public services have been shifted from the south side of the first floor to the north side, where borrower services, holds pickup and materials retrieval will be accessible to the public. The Children's Library is also reopening.

Additionally, researchers and members of the public will now be able to access archives held by the Western History and Genealogy and Reference services, as well as various community resources offered by the library.

The temporary public entrance to the library is located on the west side of the building, between Thirteenth and Fourteenth avenues on Acoma Plaza, which is across from the Denver Art Museum. The new public-facing section of the library is called Park View and will eventually turn into a two-story event space with a capacity for 400 people, seated either theater style or at round tables, once other renovations are complete.

For now, the library will be open from 1 to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays; there will be limited space available for browsing and seating, owing to constraints caused by the construction, according to DPL. The second through seventh floors will remain closed to the public as work continues.

The most recent closure was one of a series at the Central Library, which first shut down public access in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the facility closed to the public, Denver Public Library leadership began the major construction that had been part of the $69 million earmarked for library projects out of $937 million in Elevate Denver bonds approved by voters in 2017. The entire renovation of the Central Library is expected to cost over $50 million.

While other libraries in the metro area have been shutting down because of meth contamination, especially in facility bathrooms, the Denver Public Library says that none of the recent closures have been related to meth contamination.