VIDEO & SLIDESHOW: Sunny Celebration at Rainy McAuliffe Library Groundbreaking

Scores of people crowded underneath umbrellas and a large tent, to celebrate the groundbreaking of the McAuliffe Library Branch in the Nobscot section of Framingham.

The $8.6 million branch library project at 746 Water Street is scheduled to open in 2016 and is more than a decade in the making.

“I would like to welcome you now to the land of exploration, imagination, discovery and learning for people of all ages and interests,” said Framingham Library Trustees Chair Elizabeth Fideler. (Click below to watch more of her remarks on video.)

The new one-story, L-shaped library branch will be about triple the size of the current library branch in Saxonville.

The accessible new 17,000 square foot, one-story branch will have children’s and adult wings, and offer 55 parking spaces, seats for 54 patrons, 15 computer workstations, tutoring spaces, and a 50-seat community room which can remain open after normal library hours.

Framingham Library Director Mark Contois, was one of about a half dozens speakers Thursday afternoon. He focused his remarks thanking his staff and identifying three individuals who helped tremendously to get the project approved. They were former branch manager and assistant library director Jane Peck and former library director Jeanne Kelly and former library employee Tom Gilchrist.

In 2012, Framingham was awarded a state grant from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners of $4.2 million for the project.

Special Town Meeting, by law, needed to approve the full cost of the project, including the grant from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. Framingham taxpayers’ share of the project estimated at $3.8 million, will be funded over a 20-year capital bond.

Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners Mary Ann Cluggish, a former Framingham resident, also spoke at the rainy groundbreaking.

“On this day for a library that is honoring Christ McAuliffe,” Cluggish quoted the late astronomer and author Carl Sagan.

“’The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species.’ Wow! That is how important this groundbreaking is,” said Cluggish to the audience that ranged from preschoolers to senior citizens. (Click the video below to hear more of her remarks.)

Local leaders are looking at the library to be a cornerstone to the Nobscot neighborhood of Framingham, hoping it will spur both a sense of community and vibrancy to the neighborhood. )The Library is across the street from Hemenway Elementary School and Heritage assisted living center, but located adjacent to an almost empty shopping plaza.)

“Community building is more than bricks and mortar,” said Framingham Town Manager Bob Halpin at the groundbreaking ceremony. “Libraries are more about social capital. Bringing people together, sharing ideas and bringing people together. And when this library is complete, it is going to be a tremendous addition to the social capital that makes Framingham such a diverse, vibrant community.”

The design of the new branch reflects whom the library will be named after, the late first teacher in space and Framingham native Christa Corrigan McAuliffe.

What is now known as the McAuliffe Library branch opened in Saxonville in 1963, and was later renamed in honor of the astronaut, after she died in the 1986 Challenger disaster.

Lisa Bristol, McAullife’s sister, attended the groundbreaking on Thursday afternoon. Wearing a hard hat and carrying a shovel, she posed for photos and shoveled dirt on the site, as part of a handful of ceremonial groundbreaking photo opps.

There was a photo of elected Framingham Library Trustees wearing hard hats and carrying shovels, one of town and state leaders, one of honored guests and Framingham Library staff and finally one of Framingham’s youth who donated lemonade stand and bar mitzvah money to help the Framingam Library Foundation raise its goal of $600,000 towards the project.

Framingham Library Public Foundation President Ruth Winett, who is also an elected Framingham Library Trustee, said $540,000 has been raised towards that goal.

Editor’s Note: Originally posted on Oct. 24 and updated on Oct. 25.