(LEWES, Del.)- The $10.5 million dollar construction of the new Lewes Public Library is almost complete.
Tom Ritz, standing outside the old Library on Monday said it's due for an upgrade.
"That building in there is antiquated, probably 40 or 50 years old I would guess. So I look forward to using that building," said Ritz referring to the new one across the street.
On Monday, Ed Goyda, Director of the Library brought WRDE's Ali Rosen for a tour inside.
"It's so much more open than the current building, it's more expansive. It's a much more environmental building. It has solar panels on the roof which will cover our entire electricity use," said Goyda.
Goyda walked us to the teen room first "This is going to be the new teen area, it's the first time the teens are going to have a dedicated space for them in Lewes. The smaller room on the side is the teen technology room you can see there is already a green screen wall painted so they can do video productions using that."
Connecting the teen room with the childrens room is an entertainment/reading room, Goyda said this way when a program is going on it won't disrupt either room.
Next was the children's room, "this is the children's area, it's about a 30% expansion of the current library. The children's area will have an outdoor play area where the kids will be able to go outside," Goyda explained.
Another feature of the new building is the expansion of the Delaware Room which is doubling in size from the old building:
"Right now we have a lot of historical material but they're in storage because we don't have room in that collection and by expanding this room we'll be able to solve that problem. There are also a lot of climate temperature controls in this room to preserve those historic materials," said Goyda.
The new facility has four "tutoring rooms" which can also serve as quiet group study rooms.
It has a large computer training room as well as a silent reading room for those that need complete silence.
In total, the building will house 54 computers and over 60,000 books.
Ed Goyda said he hopes doors to the new library will open mid-June but could not yet give an exact date.