CLEVELAND — Kimberly Hunter can’t wait to open the doors at the Cleveland Public Library’s new Martin Luther King Jr. campus, a project that’s been a decade in the making.
The two-story branch has 207 apartments upstairs in a first-of-its-kind partnership between the library system and a private developer. It's a milestone in the library's push to renovate, expand or rebuild 27 neighborhood branches. And it’s a critical chapter of a much larger project called Circle Square, which is remaking two city blocks – and the skyline – on the rim of University Circle.
“I hope people come in and are just in awe of the building,” said Hunter, the branch manager. “Honestly, that’s the reaction we’ve been getting so far, even from staff.”
The library will hold its grand opening Saturday, with a ribbon-cutting and remarks by the Rev. Otis Moss Jr. and his wife, Edwina. More than 1,500 people have already signed up to attend the free event, which will include games, food and prizes.
During a recent tour of the branch, workers were putting the finishing touches on the space as Hunter looked on. She pointed out the ways – some obvious, others subtle – that the architects and designers incorporated King into the campus.
The words “dream,” “peace,” and “hope” appear on pillars. Poems about the civil rights movement will be projected onto the walls. The lines on decorative tiles spell out MLK, though they look more like a geometric pattern or optical illusion at first.
The heart of the space is a raised platform called the “table of brotherhood,” a reference to a line from King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech from 1963. That floor is designed for gatherings. When a massive screen slowly descends from the soaring ceiling, it transforms the library into a movie theater or performance stage.
The airy building, at 10601 Euclid Ave., is located just around the corner from the old Martin Luther King Jr. branch on Stokes Boulevard. That library opened in 1970 as a regional facility with a second-floor gallery and books about African-American history and culture.
For decades, the old branch hosted the library system’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration. It closed earlier this month, though, to make way for new development.
“A lot of our bigger programs, they were all hidden up on the second floor,” Hunter said, contrasting the old building to the new one. “But here, it’s the opposite.”
The new branch also has a much larger children’s section, with places for parents to sit and work. The story-time area can be cordoned off by a curtain during special programs for autistic kids and other children who are sensitive to bright lights or loud sounds.
Hunter’s favorite feature is the dedicated teen section, with rolling bookshelves and tables – and lots of power outlets for phones, laptops and other gadgets.
At the old building, the teenagers didn’t have their own space to do homework, play chess and read comic books and graphic novels. The new library, designed by SO-IL of Brooklyn, New York, and J. Kurtz Architects of Cleveland, sends a different message.
“Everyone is welcome,” Hunter said. “Everyone has a place here. And we can make the library what they want it to be.”
'Building from the edges in'
The seeds of the new library were planted in 2014 when the city of Cleveland asked developers to submit proposals to remake part of a block at Stokes and Chester Avenue.
At the time, the city was emptying out an old police station on the corner. The library joined in, putting the old Martin Luther King Jr. branch in play, too.
The following year, a local development team emerged as the winner of that contest – with a much bigger vision. For a decade now, they’ve been working with partners to build Circle Square, a project that eventually will straddle Stokes from Chester to Euclid.
Since construction started, the developers have been working around the old library, honoring a commitment to keep the branch open until the replacement campus was complete.
“We have been building from the edges in,” said Steve Rubin, a partner with Midwest Development Partners, the master developer tackling the site.
“It has been a labor of love, I think, for everybody involved,” he added.
The first building at Circle Square debuted in 2023. The nearly 300-unit apartment tower is called the Artisan. It's located at Chester and Stokes, with a parking garage tucked behind it.
The new library sits on the first floor of a second, smaller apartment building, a more modestly priced property called Library Lofts.
During a recent tour, Rubin showed off the one- and two-bedroom units, which are aimed at young professionals, medical residents, nurses and other people who work or go to school nearby. Online listings show the rents range from $1,500 to $2,400 a month.
Originally, the apartment building and the new library were supposed to sit side-by-side. However, the library’s footprint kept growing, prompting the developers to stack the uses.
“We told them to dream the perfect library and that we would try to work around it,” said Rubin, who described the new branch as “spectacular.”
The Circle Square master plan shows a hotel in place of the old library building. It will connect to the central parking garage, which includes parking for tenants, library staff and patrons. The project will not impact Fenway Manor, a historic, low-income senior apartment complex at Euclid and Stokes.
Midwest Development Partners is charting the broader vision for Circle Square, which includes revamped streets and wider sidewalks designed to slow traffic and make it easier to get around on foot or by bicycle. The group is teaming up with other developers on individual buildings.
Rubin said the goal is to start building the hotel and another apartment tower on the east side of Stokes along Chester next year. Like the Artisan, those new buildings will include ground-floor retail spaces.
“We’d like people who want to come here and … before work, have a cup of coffee, run into friends, sit on the benches,” he said.
The final piece of land, at the northeast corner of Stokes and Euclid, is earmarked for an office building. But it’s unclear whether that will happen.
“We’re all still trying to figure out what the office of the 21st century is going to be,” Rubin said. “So right now, I don’t think anybody here knows whether that’s feasible and, if so, when. If not, we’re starting to think about alternatives that we can place there.”
As the new library branch opens, it will clear a path for the next phase of construction. And it will make good on a commitment that library leaders and developers made from the start.
“It’s not your typical library,” Hunter said, surveying the almost-finished space. “It’s more fun – and functional.”
She knows the library's neighbors have high expectations.
“Because we are named after Martin Luther King Jr., they just want it to have a really big impact in the community,” she said.
And she’s ready to meet them with open arms.
“That’s what we want,” she said. “We want people to come in and just fall in love with the libraries.”
