The new Lake Stevens Library on track to open late 2026

Published 12:23 pm Sunday, May 17, 2026

LAKE STEVENS — Construction for the new Lake Stevens Library is on schedule for an expected opening later this year.

A Friday tour of the site on 99th Avenue Northeast, just north of Market Place in Lake Stevens, showed the progress of the construction.

“Construction remains on track to finish this year, and it takes a lot once construction is done to fill it up with the books and the shelves and everything,” said Chy Ross, Sno-Isle Libraries’ assistant director of capital strategy and planning, on Friday. “We don’t have a date yet, but we look forward to welcoming the community.”

The new building stands two stories high and covers 15,000 square feet. The current library has been in a 5,000-square-foot temporary location at 2211 Grade Road since 2021, after the 1985 Lake Stevens Library building was torn down as part of the city’s downtown revitalization project.

Sno-Isle Libraries secured two state grants totaling $3.1 million to fund construction, with the support of Sen. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek. Also, Sno-Isle is using capital campaigns and levy funds to meet the grants’ matching requirements.

In May, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Medina, helped secure an additional $250,000 federal grant to complete construction.

Designs for the library building are inspired by community input with a focus on early learning and sustainability, a project overview says.

“There is just a lot of sustainable construction going into this building,” Ross said. The timber used is particularly sustainable, he said.

“The cross-laminated timber material is the really exciting material,” Ross said. “It is a mass timber product that can be used for structural purposes. So, it’s the ceiling that you’re looking at here, and that is a highly sustainable product that comes from our local forestry industry.”

Large windows on both sides of the first floor emphasize the openness of what will include an interactive children’s area and a flexible public meeting room.

“The main amount of this floor is dedicated to that children’s area. So again, highly interactive, exciting early learning principle-based space,” Ross said. “Our meeting room here on the side that we’re on is going to have a sliding glass wall.”

The new library’s collection will be 23,000 books, more than three times the size of its current collection, according to Executive Director Eric Howard.

The second floor will hold the majority of the collection, along with several study rooms and a teen section. Outside will be usable space for community gathering, learning and reading.

“There is a wetland on the neighboring property,” Ross said. “So, we’re doing a full wetland buffer restoration. This will all be native planting for the landscaping.”

The buffer will include learning trails with informational signs, reading spaces and a semi-enclosed gathering space, he said.

“It’s both a place that would invite people to just kind of stay and linger and explore it themselves,” Ross said, “but I know our great library staff are going to come up with amazing ideas of how to put on some activities and classes, and maybe some outdoor story times.”

Initial community outreach in 2021 emphasized the community’s desire for outdoor and indoor community spaces, Ross said. Community input will continue to inform the new library after completion.

Last year, all 23 Sno-Isle Libraries were more popular than ever before, Howard said, having issued the highest number of library cards in its history.

In Lake Stevens, the library’s popularity will only continue to grow once construction is complete, he said.

“When we open new libraries, it often doubles the usage, and that’s because people who haven’t even used the library before now see this exciting space and they want to check it out, and then they become lifelong learners with us,” Howard said.

Taylor Scott Richmond: 425-339-3046; taylor.richmond@heraldnet.com; X: @BTayOkay