Newly renovated Richard Elías Mission Library is a place for community

It meant a fresh supply of graphic novels. It meant a quick run to Little Caesars across the street, and a fun afternoon in the park next door.

Well, the more things change …

Little Caesars and Kennedy Park are still right there, and now — 25 years later — there is a familiar face behind the front desk at the library.

Meet Hassael Cazesuz, the branch manager of the newly renovated Richard Elías Mission Library, which reopened last month and held its ceremonial grand opening Saturday, June 13.

“I do kind of feel like I belong here,” he confessed last week. “It’s not just the time I spent here growing up. I worked here for a couple of years when I was starting out as a librarian. It was a beautiful full-circle moment the day I came back.”

Luckily, Cazesuz remembered where to find the place, because the library itself bears little resemblance to the one he remembered from days gone by.

The two-year renovation added 4,700 square feet of floor space to the original footprint of 10,600. Workers lifted the ceilings, infused the library with natural light and created a variety of spaces — both indoors and out — to accommodate children, tweens, teens and adults.

There is a community room that can accommodate groups as large as 150 people, a versatile maker/gamer space, and three dedicated study rooms.

Still, the most striking new element is an old one: The 20-foot arch that stood in front of the library from 1978-2024 is now inside the front door.

“The first thing I saw the first time I toured the new building was the arch,” Cazesuz said. “What a great way to honor the past history here, to have it inside. They actually built the new library around the old one.”

Cazesuz and his new staff began moving into their new home in early April, job one being to shelve more than 21,000 books.

“Once the books were here, we needed to do all the signage, supply the service desks and organize the storage areas … all from scratch. It was a lot, but we opened the doors on time, and people seem to like what we’ve done with the place.”

Located at one of the busiest intersections in Tucson — South Mission Road at West Ajo Way — the new Mission Library promises to be a busy place itself by summer’s end.

Already, staffers have issued more than 400 new library cards, Community Engagement Manager Brian Ramirez said. New books are arriving every week, and a variety of summer programs — such as bilingual story times on Wednesday and Friday mornings — are now underway.

There are summer reading programs for children, teens and adults. A help desk for those with computer and job questions will be open every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon.

“We’re hoping that as people hear we’re open again, they’ll stop by and see all the things we’re doing … and all the reasons they should come back,” Cazesuz said. “I think they’ll be surprised. This isn’t the library we all remember as kids. It’s bright, colorful, open, new. We’re hoping our whole community will feel at home here, whether you’re with a group or just need some time by yourself.”

The Mission Library is one of 27 in the Pima County Public Library system, and the second to undergo a major renovation since a new capital improvement plan was approved six years ago.

The first was the Martha Cooper Library in midtown, which reopened in 2024. The renovation of Himmel Park Library east of the university is now under construction and should be ready for a ribbon-cutting late next year.

Pima County Public Library Director Tess Mayer thinks first-time visitors will like what they find at the new Mission branch.

“It’s a wonderful new space, and Hassael and his team have done a great job of getting it ready,” she said. “This branch is really important to us. It serves a large community, one of the largest we have. We’ve been an important resource there for a long time, and now we’ll be able to show the next generation of library users all the ways they can benefit from all the services we can offer them now.”

Like Cazesuz, Mayer also hopes the community will see the library as a place to, well, community.

“When we talk about the library of the future, one of the things we all agree on is that the library should always be a place where people can come together, in big groups or small, knowing they’re in a place where everyone is welcome,” Mayer said. “Our new designs all start there, and our newest library is a pretty great example of what that can look like.”

Footnotes

• Opened originally in 1978, the Mission Library became the Richard Elías Mission Library in 2020, six months after Elías died unexpectedly at the age of 61. He had served 18 years on the Pima County Board of Supervisors.
• Tucson-based Line and Space is the architectural firm that re-designed the new Mission Library. Among its earlier projects: the University of Arizona Poetry Center, which moved into its current location in 2007.
• The Poetry Center will host its first “Summer Social” next Sunday, June 28, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Century Room at Hotel Congress. Attendees will be invited to read their own poems or their favorite poems about rain in hopes of summoning this summer’s monsoon. For more, visit poetry.arizona.edu/calendar.
• Author Kristin Harmel’s upcoming novel is called “Meet Me in Paris,” but readers will be able to meet her in Tucson on Saturday evening, Aug. 1. Harmel will be at the new Stacks Book Club location on Broadway to celebrate the launch of her new book, which will release four days earlier. For tickets and additional information, visit stacksbookclub.com/events.