Central Oregon public libraries are having a moment, with new or renovated libraries opening in Redmond and Sunriver this year and a massive new Bend Central Library under construction and on track to open in April 2026.

The Sunriver Area Public Library will wrap up its remodel by September at the latest, after being closed since last fall.

The rebuilt Redmond Public Library is expected to open in December, said Todd Dunkelberg, Deschutes Public Library system director.

The library system’s 2020 bond measure paid for the Central and Redmond libraries, and renovations at the Sisters, Sunriver and La Pine libraries. The renovated Sisters and La Pine libraries opened last October, and the reception has been positive, said Dunkelberg.

The remodels include replacing air conditioning and heating equipment. Librarians wanted to make sure the remodeled libraries were able to handle larger amounts of smoke due to wildfires, so people in the summer can have a clean place to breathe. That’s one hidden element Dunkelberg is proud of.

“For me, that’s an exciting piece: that it’s not just a nice-looking building, but it’s something that’s really going to have value for people when they need it,” said Dunkelberg. “This community is growing so fast. It’s nice to know that we are keeping pace with that growth.”

Construction of the Central Library in Bend

The Central Library will be a three-story building, with a cafe run by Thump Coffee, large meeting rooms, interactive children’s spaces, two maker spaces, a co-working space and smaller one-on-one meeting areas. It will include 100,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor spaces on 8.5 acres located at Southeast 27th Street and Wilderness Way.

“Probably by the end of August, they’re actually going to start putting in steel beams and a lot of it’s a wood-framed building. It’s pre-fabricated wood so it’s going to be shipped in and they’ll just start piecing it together, kind of like a Lego set,” he said. “It’ll go up pretty fast at that point over the next six months.”

The project is expected to be within the $137 million budget, he said.

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“We started designing these buildings in 2021, and a lot of that was week after week, sitting and talking about ‘We can put this here or that there’ but all of it was really looking at lines on a piece of paper, and so to actually see it come to fruition is really exciting,” said Dunkelberg.

Redmond library

The new Redmond Public Library, built in the same location as the previous library, will be opening in early December. It will be slightly larger than the Downtown Bend Public Library and cost $43.8 million.

The library will be a net-zero electricity building, meaning it produces as much energy as it uses, and the heating, cooling, and water heater will be electric.

“Probably by the end of July, they will be done with construction and then we start filling it up with library stuff,” said Dunkelberg. “All the shelving, the books, it’s gonna take a couple months to get all the books in.”

The Redmond library will be the first library with an automated material return, where books are returned, land on a conveyor belt, are checked in and then mechanically sorted into a bin depending on classification.

It will also be the first library with a co-working space.

The library will also have a drive-through window to return books or pick up holds, which the Central Library will have too. It will have two large meeting rooms and a children’s area. There will be a maker space for crafts and 3-D printing.

“Just to be inside the building and just know, seeing how nice it’s looking and how all the spaces look, how exciting this is going to be for people once they get in there, that’s really rewarding,” said Dunkelberg. “It’s like having a gift for someone and just waiting for them to open it.”

Sunriver library

The Sunriver Area Public Library remodel will be open in early September. The library originally opened in 1998, the same year the Downtown Bend Public Library opened. The project cost $3.5 million .

“We just put the landscaping in,” said Dunkelberg. “They never had their own children’s space there before, it was always just right out in the middle of the library, so we created a room just for kids.”

The temporary libraries for both Redmond and Sunriver will likely close a few weeks before the library opens, so staff have time to move all the materials over to the permanent library.

With the East Bend Public Library closing next year, library administrators are looking to broaden their reach into the community and are planning library kiosks for people to check out and return books throughout the county.

The Downtown Bend library will be the final library to be renovated, once the Central Library is finished in 2026. Through the remodel, the Downtown Bend library will gain more public spaces.