Sarah Rankin visits the East Bend Library with her 1- and 3-year-old daughters on a regular basis, two or three times a month.
“I love picking out movies for us to watch…or recipe books for myself or crafting books,” she told the Source. Her oldest daughter’s first birthday was celebrated at the eastside library. “We come here a lot for story time and even meeting friends for play dates,” Rankin says.
That East Bend branch, located off Highway 20 on Dean Swift Road, is set to close on Saturday, Nov. 15, shortly before the lease expires in December.
“I’m a little sad, but I’m really excited about the larger library,” Rankin said, referring to the Central Library currently under construction on SE 27th Street.
The East Bend Library opened in 2011, after the recession.
“Usage of libraries and community college just shot way up,” says Library Director Todd Dunkelberg. “Downtown Bend [library] was overwhelmed, and so it was a really great relief valve for us, and it has been. At the time, we thought, ‘this is a good five-year solution until we find a permanent solution on the east side.’ And so, fast forward 15 years and here we are.”
About 75,000 people use the East Bend Library each year. A celebration to honor the staff and what the location meant to families will be held Sat. Nov. 8 from noon to 2pm.
Two miles away, in the new Stevens Ranch neighborhood, the 100,000-square-foot Central Library is rising. It’ll offer much more than the east branch — or even the downtown Bend location — ever could, with space confinements.
The state-of-the-art, net-zero building will have community meeting rooms, private study rooms, co-working spaces, a large children’s discovery center, a teen lounge, a maker’s space, a coffee kiosk and an outdoor plaza. The Central Library is expected to open in late May or early June.
The Deschutes Public Library system has been tackling an ambitious timeline to remodel all of its locations after voters approved a $195 million bond in 2020. Sunriver, Redmond, Sisters and La Pine are done. In February, the second floor of the Downtown Bend Library will close in preparation for remodeling. In March, only the lobby will be open for limited service in picking up and returning items. In April, the entire library will close. Dunkelberg says there will be about a two-week period when no library in Bend will be open. However, users can still check out items online and pick them up at a drive-thru window at the new Central Library.
Dunkelberg says while it may be an inconvenience, it’s necessary. “We have to shift everything, all the books and everything there [downtown] to the new Central Library and we have to shift our staff, so we need that transition.” Dunkelberg says he and all the staff working in the administration building on NW Wall Street next to the downtown branch will be relocated to the Central Library, leaving the current administration building empty. It will be up to the Board of Directors to decide what to do with the property.
When it opened in 1998, the Downtown Bend Library was designed for a population of 35,000. The population today is more than triple that number. The remodel at the downtown library will include a new roof, new HVAC systems, the addition of a large meeting room along with smaller meeting or study rooms, a new youth programming room and a revamped teen area.
“This is a really great opportunity…setting us up so that building will be in great shape for the next 25 to, I don’t know, 50 years, if we’re lucky,” Dunkelberg says. He’s worked for the Deschutes County Library for 26 years.
“It’s fun to be able to bring something to light that we know the community wants,” he says, referring to the Central Library. “We are so lucky to have the support of the voters to get us to this spot. A lot of times, what happens is the population grows beyond what a library can handle and they then kind of squeak along for about 20 years until it’s so bad that finally people do something. I’m just happy that we’re in a spot where we’re able to keep up with growth.”
East Bend Library Community Event
Sat. Nov 8, Noon-2pm
62080 Dean Swift Rd., Bend
Free
This article appears in the Source October 9, 2025.
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