Tulsa City-County Library holds groundbreaking for Eddy Gibbs Library in Owasso

The Tulsa City-County Library (TCCL) held a groundbreaking event for the new Eddy Gibbs Library being built in Owasso.

“This is an exciting day,” shared TCCL CEO Kimberly Johnson. “We are breaking ground on the new Eddy Gibbs Public Library here in Owasso. It is hugely important. This is one of our busiest libraries in the system. It’s the sixth busiest in traffic and the community is growing. The library wants to grow along with the community, so it’s a big day to be able to have demolished the space and start to build a brand new library.”

One unique aspect of the new Owasso library is the apartments being built above the library, which will occupy the ground floor.

“This will be a 23,000 square foot space building with apartments above...We’re an innovative library system and we’re always looking for ways to expand our spaces. This partnership with Dean West Development saves the library about $4 million, saves the taxpayer $4 million, and so when we started talking about it, it was really a no brainer around how to make this work for the community. Again, Owasso has about 400,000 items that circulated in 2024. It’s a growing city, a growing downtown and it really needs an expanded library.”

Johnson discussed some of the amenities the new library will include.

“The new Eddy Gibbs Library will have an outdoor children’s park. It’ll have an outdoor adult porch space area. We’ll also have an enlarged children’s space, a dedicated story time room. We have a lot of young families that come to Owasso library for books and reading and our programs, so we’ll have a dedicated children’s space there as well. We’ll also have huddle rooms. A lot of folks have requested of us that they have quiet places to study and so this new space will have seven huddle rooms in addition to a larger meeting room.”

Johnson said having a thriving library is vital for supporting any community.

“Libraries are so important. We have over 5,000 people that visit our library every day and folks are coming to our library to earn their high school diploma, apply for jobs, apply for school and they’re coming in to enjoy programs. Libraries are all about literacy and learning and education and so every community really values their Tulsa City-County Library.”

The new Owasso location is set to open sometime in 2027. A temporary library location has been opened while construction is underway. It is located in the 5th Avenue Business Park in Owasso at 314 East Fifth Avenue in Suite 202.