Hawthorne Holds Pickup closing August 3 to begin move
PORTLAND, Ore.--July 6, 2026
Multnomah County Library is excited to announce the grand opening of Belmont Library on August 15, 2026. Belmont Library is more than twice its original size, built to reflect its diverse neighboring communities and is the final major project of the 2020 Library Capital Bond.
At a glance:
- Hawthorne Holds Pickup location closing August 3, 2026
- Advance press tour August 10, 2026
- Ribbon cutting ceremony August 15, 2026
- Public celebration August 15-16, 2026
- New features and spaces: kids, teens, community rooms
- Community-driven art
Multnomah County Library is modernizing library spaces as part of a November 2020 capital bond. With the opening of the transformed Belmont Library, the library has opened 20 building projects (11 Refreshes, eight renovated, expanded or new libraries and one Operations Center) and has completed the major projects laid out in the capital bond. The Library Capital Bond has responsibly used the community’s investments to deliver beautiful, modern and transformed libraries.
Belmont Library is one of the busiest locations in the entire county for circulation, yet it had one of the smallest footprints before construction (approximately 6,000 square feet). It’s a textbook example of the space shortage the library bond worked to fix. To recognize its role as a beloved location, all of the updates are the result of extensive community and staff engagement with features for the community to enjoy. Gifts to The Library Foundation supported the creation of an interactive early learning space, a teen room for students to gather and study, and mobile creative learning lab at Belmont Library.
Hawthorne Holds Pickup location closing August 3, 2026
During the construction of Belmont Library, a temporary location was established at 3557 SE Hawthorne Boulevard to provide patrons with a space for holds pickups, wi-fi, printing, scanning and more.
The temporary Hawthorne Holds Pickup location is closing to the public on August 3, 2026 in order to move books, furniture and other materials out of the space and help staff prepare the updated Belmont Library for patrons. The last day the temporary holds location will be open to the public will be August 2.
The community is invited to use alternate locations while the Hawthorne Holds Pickup is closed and before Belmont Library reopens:
Hollywood Library: 4040 NE Tillamook Street, Portland, OR 97212
Holgate Library: 7905 SE Holgate Boulevard, Portland, OR 97206
Celebrating Belmont with the community
To celebrate the opening of the new, expanded Belmont, the library is hosting two, fun-filled days of activities for the community on Saturday, August 15 and Sunday, August 16. Beginning with a ribbon cutting on Saturday, August 15 followed by music, dancing and more, there will be plenty to do while exploring the new features of Belmont Library. Patrons can stay up-to-date on the library website.
Advance press tour of Belmont Library
**Due to the level of activity expected for the opening events, members of the media are invited to tour the new library early on Monday, August 10, 2026 from 3-4 pm. The press tour will meet outside the library. At this time, the media can get photos of the completed building, comments about the new features and learn about the expansive space, public art and more at Belmont. **
Exterior rendering of Belmont Library; rendering courtesy of Bora Architecture & Interiors
New features include:
- An early learning and play space for children and their families.
- Two small and two large community rooms for meetings and library programs.
- A teen area for engaging with technology, connection and creativity.
- Updated wi-fi and technology, including more laptops, iPads and creative software for patron use.
- New Automated Materials Handling system, ensuring materials get to patrons much faster.
- Modern self-checkout stations to provide a better patron experience.
- 17,000 books, DVDs and CDs with representation of the cultural and language diversity of the neighborhood.
- New art that represents the community in partnership with the Regional Arts & Culture Council, including:
- A suspended sculpture in the teen area by artist Britt Howard
- A reading room wall installation by artist Emily Counts
- A lobby mural from the design team, with shapes inspired by a cut paper collage workshop held at the Belmont Street Fair.
Centering the community
To amplify the community’s ideas, the library worked with the design team to host focus groups, public meetings, and public surveys. The library engaged over 3,000 people during more than 60 activities. Community members cast over 1,500 votes for Belmont’s interior color, and the winning theme was “Evening Glow,” with orange and golden yellow tones shifting into relaxed and calming blues.
Additionally, five Community Design Advocates were part of a paid program to connect with their communities about how Belmont Library can represent them. This group met with the library’s designers and worked together to plan their outreach, then gave feedback to the architects based on what they learned from their communities.
Belmont is also unique in that the community helped guide the direction for the renovation and expansion, with over 800 respondents providing input through an online survey as well as a physical survey and open house at Belmont before design began. The greatest number of respondents showed interest in keeping the historic building while adding more space, increasing to roughly two times the size of the original library.
A welcoming space
Belmont Library now comes with more space to enjoy the diverse collection of books, CDs and DVDs available to patrons. Check out the spacious new lobby. This includes a beautiful wall artwork from the design team featuring patterns inspired by a cut paper art workshop held at the Belmont Street Fair.
Belmont Library’s kids area; rendering courtesy of Bora Architecture & Interiors
Learning and playing in the kids area
Belmont Library is continuing the commitment to early learning and development with a kids area for learning and play. This area has unique furniture developed by the Burgeon Group, the premier firm designing, building and installing creative early learning spaces in public libraries. The furniture features a beautiful neighborhood garden, full of plants and animals that kids see on a walk through the Belmont neighborhood. As a bonus, the kids area has expanded, and now fills the entire historic Belmont building with 2,300 sf of reading, play and learning.
A new teen area
Belmont Library’s new 550 square foot teen area is a special addition. Guided by teen input, teens have access to an area where they can study, play games using state-of-the-art video equipment and just be in community with other teens. Teens can plug-in to a 75” screen (or unplug!) in a new area complete with a suspended sculpture from artist Britt Howard.
Places for accessible connection
With multiple community rooms, it’s easy to connect at Belmont Library. Whether you’re attending a community meeting, going to a library event, or just need a quiet room for a one-on-one conversation, these spaces are for the community. There’s one large and two small community rooms the public can use.
The community rooms are also equipped with audiovisual equipment. Need to connect remotely for a job interview or host a presentation? Belmont Library has you covered! All of the meeting rooms support state-of-the-art presentation and video conferencing when connected to a library-supplied laptop.
The large community rooms are even more accessible thanks to assistive listening systems that amplify sounds from lectures, presentations, storytimes and events. This way, hard of hearing patrons can fully engage with library programs and resources. In the large community rooms at Belmont, the library offers assistive listening devices through a wireless system that allows patrons to use library-provided receivers or their own smartphones.
Artwork for all
As part of these building projects, each major location gains engaging new artwork thanks to the Multnomah County Percent for Art Program, which is led by the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC). RACC advocates for equity, inclusion and access within the arts. They also connect artists and creatives to opportunities throughout the region.
Local artist, designer and creative Britt Howard of Studio Howard and Portland Garment Factory (PGF) has created a sculpture trio for the new teen area. The soft sculptural forms are made from layers of scaled fabric sheets mimicking ruled paper torn straight from a spiral notebook. Sculpted over internal armatures, the works take the form of enlarged paper airplanes, cootie catchers, and other familiar classroom creations. The artwork pulls from universal teenage tropes around boredom, humor, and the creativity that's born from restless fidgety hands when given a simple piece of paper. Britt’s piece honors our collective reverence for physical ephemera and printed matter. Having grown up at Belmont Library and then raising her children in the Sunnyside neighborhood, Britt’s connection to bibliophilia and the site specific location is deeply embedded in the work. The sculptures celebrate the role of libraries as vital public resources and containers for both paper and digital assets as well as spaces that acknowledge the importance of teenage learning, connection, and self-expression by creating space for this important yet fleeting time in life.
Regional artist Emily Counts, who hails from the Pacific Northwest but is internationally known, has created a large-scale multidisciplinary artwork which spans the 70-foot wide upstairs reading room wall. The installation features a painted mural background composed of abstract shapes in solid colors, inspired by clay and earth, sky, and sunsets. Layered over this mural are more than 200 handmade objects, composed primarily of hand glazed ceramics with some shapes cut from wood and plexiglass. Most of these elements are flat, resembling tiles, while others include three-dimensional protrusions and textured reliefs. By crafting the ceramics by hand, Emily has ensured each object is unique. Their forms and colors reference the natural world, suggesting items like plants, clouds, and flowers, alongside simple geometric shapes. They cluster and flow across the wall, forming relationships and groupings that interact with the mural beneath, as though filling oversized vessels or moving along imagined pathways. A sense of movement and sound is implied through pattern, repetition, and directional composition. The collection of shapes and colors was developed by Emily in response to community feedback about the desired aesthetic for the new library space. Alongside references to nature, the work also considers the development of human language through the evolution of symbols and pictograms. Emily created a visual vocabulary of symbols and translated them into wall tiles and objects, forming an abstract landscape that might evoke alphabets, words, literature or even music. Emily’s hope is that the artwork is inspiring, uplifting and nurturing, a place for discovery and escape.
Belmont Library’s collection and reading area; rendering courtesy of Bora Architecture & Interiors
A resilient building
Bora Architecture & Interiors led the design for Belmont Library. Howard S. Wright, a Balfour Beatty company, is the General Contractor. Belmont Library is on track to be LEED Gold certified, one of the highest levels of energy efficiency awarded to buildings and a county standard. Belmont reduced its impact on the environment by reusing much of the existing historic building structure and facades. The building also boasts seismic upgrades, a mass timber structure, highly efficient new mechanical and plumbing systems, as well as low-emitting materials which contribute to improved indoor air quality. The building also optimizes the placement of the west-facing windows to make the most of daylight while minimizing glare.
Multnomah County Library is excited to present this modernized Belmont Library to the community.
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About Multnomah County Library
A treasured community institution since 1864, Multnomah County Library is one of the nation’s busiest public library systems, providing social, educational and cultural programs, resources and services, online and through its 19 public locations. With an eye toward the future of community-centered spaces, the library is working to build, rebuild or expand nine libraries through a voter approved capital bond. In addition to being Oregon’s largest provider of free internet access, the library offers millions of print and digital resources, in multiple languages for people of all ages. From early learning to job training, computer-assisted design and 3D printing, the library supports all people in their pursuits to connect, learn and create. Learn more at multcolib.org