A reading center is inadequate for over 60,000 people, ... We know it's going to be very busy, and it's going to be great to have a library this size with this many materials and computers to serve this area of the county, which is now underserved.

This will be totally unique to any other center in South Florida, ... It'll be the hub of programming countywide. There will be a great emphasis on the space and the way it looks, but also all the programming we intend to do, including technology for children, teens and adults. In my view, it'll really pull it all together. It will be a great steppingstone for the future.

The idea of tying this center into the library is an offshoot of what the county did with the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center. We have space. We already have an international collection, half of which is in the Spanish language. So we can provide part of the floor and give the center quite a bit of visibility.

A lot of people want to build a new home that looks like it's 100 years old. The look of hand-hewn wood and barn wood -- it's hard to duplicate what nature does. It's hard to get an authentic look.

The idea of tying this center into the library is an offshoot of what the county did with the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center [on Sistrunk], ... We have space. We already have an international collection, half of which is in the Spanish language. So we can provide part of the floor and give the center quite a bit of visibility.

[The beams and planks come with a certificate verifying their origin,] a big part of our marketing, ... A lot of people like to know where their material comes from.