Fuquay-Varina Library leaves downtown with proposed expansion

Claudia White said the Fuquay-Varina Community Library, located in the heart of downtown, is a busy place on Thursday mornings.

“We come to story time, and the story time is so jam-packed,” she said.

The library is one of the smallest in Wake County, so commissioners plan to build a much bigger regional library in the town. The facility will be about twice the size of the current building.

Earlier this month, county library officials recommended a site at Judd Parkway, which is outside of downtown Fuquay-Varina, but Mayor John Byrne said the location was not his first choice.

“We wanted to have the library downtown,” Byrne said.

Byrne said the town looked at many options to keep the new library in the heart of Fuquay-Varina, but no site is big enough. He said, in the end, it’s up to Wake County commissioners and it looks as though the Judd Parkway site is the only option.

“When you’re growing as fast as we are, it’s important that you plan out into the future, and I think that’s what the county is trying to do,” Byrne said.

Warren Sawicki and his wife visit the library a few times a week. He said it would be nice to keep the new library downtown, near bakeries and shops. White said she won’t mind the library leaving downtown if it cuts down on congestion.

“I love coming here, but I would love to see a bigger library,” she said.

Byrne said county commissioners could take a final vote on the plan at their next meeting and a new library could be finished in a couple of years. He said the current library site will become town property and commissioners are thinking about how to use it.