Demolition of Norfolk’s Kirn Library opens a new chapter

By Debbie Messina
The Virginian-Pilot
© July 7, 2009
NORFOLK

With a loud, crunching bite of a giant construction claw, Kirn Memorial Library started to tumble Monday. It signaled advancement for the city on two fronts.

The Kirn site, at City Hall Avenue and Bank Street downtown, will be the largest of 11 passenger stations on the city’s light-rail line that’s due to open next year.

And plans are under way to replace Kirn with a state-of-the-art library around the corner.

“This represents real progress for Hampton Roads,” said Jim Wood, chairman of Hampton Roads Transit’s board and a Virginia Beach councilman.

Light rail provides an opportunity for “true regional cooperation,” Wood said.

HRT and Norfolk have partnered to build a $288 million, 7.4-mile light-rail line beginning at the medical center near Brambleton Avenue, going through downtown and reaching the city line at Newtown Road. It’s projected to open in late summer or early fall of 2010.

HRT also is working with Virginia Beach on a study to extend rail into that city.

Kirn’s demolition and site clearance will take about six weeks, HRT spokesman Tom Holden said.

In conjunction with the light-rail station, the city plans to develop a marketplace at the Kirn site to serve as a downtown gathering spot.

As Kirn’s brick, cinder block, metal and glass crumbled into a heap of rubble, tears rolled down Shauntina Robinson’s cheeks.

“The outside made it look kind of ugly, but when you came in, it felt like you were right at home,” said Robinson, who worked as a library aide at Kirn. “There’s a whole bunch of good memories in that library.”

“It’s a bittersweet moment,” said librarian Cathy Thomann, who worked at Kirn for 10 years. “It’s exciting to know something good is going to be in its place.”

Jeanneane Southern, who worked at Kirn for three years, said, “The wonderful part of this equation is the city is putting money into libraries.”

Kirn, which served as the city’s main library for 47 years, closed at the end of 2008. Most of its books and staff moved to the nearby historic Seaboard Building on Plume Street, which was renamed Norfolk Main Library.

Over the next four years, a $50 million expansion will be built. A glass atrium will separate Seaboard and the new library.

Frank Batten Sr. donated $20 million for the new library and challenged the city to use the money to build the most technologically advanced library in the state. Batten is the retired chairman of Landmark Communications, now known as Landmark Media Enterprises LLC, which publishes The Virginian-Pilot.

The library will be named for Col. Samuel L. Slover, Batten’s uncle who founded Landmark and raised him after his father died.

The cost of razing Kirn rose from $926,000 to $1.5 million over the past several months because the building contained far more asbestos than originally thought.

The contract also covered razing the Baylor Building on York Street, which is now gone.

Debbie Messina, (757) 446-2588, debbie.messina@pilotonline.com