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Emerson gives STL public library $4 million

An artist's rendering of the new Locust Street Atrium in the Central Library downtown.
(courtesy of St. Louis Public Library)
An artist's rendering of the new Locust Street Atrium in the Central Library downtown.

By Bill Raack, St. Louis Public Radio

St. Louis, MO – Emerson has announced a $4 million lead gift to the St. Louis Public Library. The money will be used for a new atrium at the Central Library branch downtown.

It's part of a $20 million capital campaign to revitalize the nearly century-old library.

Executive Director Waller McGuire says the Emerson gift will open up a room on the Locust Street side of the building that's always been closed to the public.

"It's a new pedestrian 21st century entry which direct access to the children's room, the center for the reader, it offers us a new area for computer labs, for meeting rooms. So it's the possibility of sort of building a new central library within the walls of the current building," McGuire said.

McGuire says the $74 million restoration project will begin in May or June and will last about two years.

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