Vienna residents officially have less than a month to check out books and other materials from Patrick Henry Library before it closes for a long-anticipated renovation.
The branch’s last day of service at 101 Maple Avenue East will be Friday, May 9, though any materials on hold will need to be picked up by May 6. Fairfax County Public Library (FCPL) finalized the date after providing an update to its Board of Trustees on Wednesday (April 9).
After the library closes, staff will spend the next few weeks packing books and other items and disassembling shelves, some of which will be relocated to a temporary site in the Cedar Park Shopping Center at 262C Cedar Lane SE.
“There will be a period of approximately three to six weeks where both the old and temporary branches will be unavailable for service while books, furniture and shelves are boxed and transported to the new location,” FCPL said in an announcement sent to all cardholders today (Friday).
Until the temporary site launches in June, FCPL advises patrons to switch their designated pickup location to another branch, such as the nearby Oakton Library or Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library.
The 2,800-square-foot temporary location will have a “small” selection of materials for browsing, pick-up and hold services, free WiFi and limited programming, including storytimes. Officials indicated at a farewell celebration in late March that no computers would be available, but FCPL now says there will be Chromebooks on site for public use.
Expected to begin construction this summer, the new library will be approximately 19,000 square feet in size with “a more spacious and functional modern design” that can better meet the needs of one of the system’s busiest community branches, according to FCPL Director Eric Carzon.
Sicnce opening in its current location in September 1971, the library has seen over 7 million visits, including almost 160,000 visits just in fiscal year 2024. During that fiscal year, which ran from July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024, over 450,000 items were checked out.
“Its older building systems, dated layout, worn out conditions, and overcrowded parking lot were strong factors motivating the community to approve a bond referendum in 2020 to replace the building,” Carzon said.
The 2020 bond referendum allocated $23 million to the Patrick Henry renovation. The Town of Vienna agreed to contribute about $5 million, a share that got bumped up to $5.6 million in 2023 due to rising construction costs.
The renovated library will feature a new community room for meetings and events that will be open after hours, an outdoor reading and gathering space, and a four-level parking garage with 209 spaces — 84 of them available for general public use.
Photovoltaic solar panels will be mounted on top of the garage, and a geothermal heating and cooling system will also help reduce the library building’s energy usage. Fairfax County is targeting net-zero carbon emissions and a LEED Gold certification for the project.
When the library opens in what’s currently expected to be mid-2027, it will bear a new name: the Vienna-Carter Library in homage to William and Lillian Carter, who helped advocate for an integrated library to replace the one-room public library that had served only white patrons in the town since 1897.
The Carter’s Friends of the Vienna Library group successfully campaigned for Patrick Henry to serve all community members when it opened at the Maple Avenue Shopping Center in 1962. When the library relocated to its current site, the original library was moved to the Vienna Town Green, where it now operates as a museum.
The FCPL Board of Trustees unanimously approved Patrick Henry’s name change in February 2024. In a written statement to FFXnow, Carzon noted that the new name will reflect both the community where the library is located and acknowledge a “family who was instrumental in integrating public library services in the County.”
“It will add both substantial beauty, utility (parking, model energy efficiency, enhanced meeting spaces), and lifelong learning capacity to the Town and the County,” Carzon said of the renovation project. “We look forward to the new facility having enhanced capacities to help residents in all the phases of their life gain literacies, fuel their imagination, discover new ideas, and experience joy while they connect with new knowledge, cultural expression, and community in their new library space.”
