By Jeff Weinstein Santa Monica
The city of Santa Monica, with approximately 85,000 residents, is spending in the neighborhood of $75 million for its new 104,000-square-foot Main Library currently under construction, or $720 per square foot. As a comparison, the city of Seattle, at least 10 times larger in population, recently completed a new Main Library in its downtown by world-famous architect Rem Koolhaas, at a cost of $165 million, including $10 million for a temporary location during construction. Seattle’s Main Library houses 363,000 square feet, and costs $450 per square foot.
Although Seattle’s Main Library is more than three times larger in size, it cost only twice as much. Furthermore, Santa Monica with far less population than Seattle, is building a facility whose costs rivals that of a major urban library. The responsibility for this financial fiasco rests on the shoulders of this City Council, some of whom have never held a full-time job and cannot balance their own checkbook. Voters should hold government officials accountable for wasting public funds on extravagant projects.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 13, 2004. Read the original PDF.