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.