AUBURN – The sun came out Thursday morning as Auburn Public Library officials broke ground on a $7 million expansion and renovation.
A crowd of 70 came to the courtyard in front of the Auburn City Building to watch schoolchildren and library trustees move the first few shovels full of wet sod.
“God wouldn’t let it rain on Barbara Trafton,” said Elizabeth Sheppard, president of the library’s board of trustees.
The library will close at 5 p.m. Saturday, June 12, to begin preparation for the work.
Sheppard wasn’t the only one to applaud Trafton, chairwoman of the expansion fund-raising committee. She was the one who brought the effort all together, said Mayor Normand Guay.
“If not for Barbara’s efforts, we could not be here this morning,” Guay said. Trafton applauded city and library leaders and library patrons for their hard work.
“Now the real work starts, over the next 18 months,” Trafton said.
The library began planning the expansion in 1998. According to plans, the existing building will expand to the area now home to the City Building. Municipal offices will move City Hall, at Court Street and Mechanics Row, in July.
About 40,000 volumes of the 70,000 in the library’s collection will move to vacant space in the Auburn Mall, to a space of about 7,500 square feet formerly used by the Express, a clothing store. That interim library is scheduled to open by July 12.
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