Steel, Stories, and a Digital Mural by a Blind Artist
Walk past the construction fencing in downtown Celina on any given weekday and you can hear it — the low grind of heavy equipment, the clang of structural work pushing skyward. What is going up is not just another building. By late 2026, this site is supposed to deliver something Celina has never had before: a purpose-built public library on a scale that matches the city’s own rapid growth.
The project is part of the $93.5 million Downtown Center, a 115,245-square-foot development that will consolidate a new library, city offices, a parking garage, and public gathering space into a single downtown campus. Major structural work is underway, with completion expected before the end of the year.
What the New Library Will Actually Look Like
The library component alone covers 26,209 square feet across multiple floors — a significant leap from the current Celina Public Library at 142 N. Ohio St., which has been stretching to serve a population that keeps adding residents faster than most Texas cities can count them.
One of the more striking design choices involves a digital mural created by John Bramblitt, an artist who is blind. Bramblitt’s work has drawn national attention for the way he navigates color and texture without sight, and his contribution will be a visible centerpiece of the new space. The building also features a rooftop community area, giving residents an outdoor gathering spot stacked above downtown’s street level.
Those details are not accidental flourishes. They signal the kind of library Celina is trying to build — one that functions as civic infrastructure, not just a place to check out books.
The Director Behind the Planning
Library Director Andrea Ortiz has been steering the planning and development of the new facility while simultaneously running the existing library’s full slate of programming. Her focus, according to the city, has been modernizing library services and expanding community programs — work that happens both in the current building and in the longer-range vision for the new one.
That dual workload is worth noting. The library at 142 N. Ohio St. is not standing still while construction proceeds across town. This summer alone, it is running an annual Summer Reading Program with five prize tiers earned after every 150 minutes of reading logged, a schedule of Friday storytimes held in the Council Chambers at 112 N. Colorado St., and visits from Celina firefighters who come to read to kids and let them get a close look at fire equipment.
The adult side of the programming calendar includes resume-building workshops, computer training classes, and in-person sessions on gardening, arts, and wellness, offered in partnership with local organizations. The “On the Same Page” book club meets twice a month — first Tuesdays at 10:00 AM and first Thursdays at 6:30 PM — for anyone who wants a structured reason to read and talk about it.
In other words, the library that is about to get a dramatically larger home is already doing a great deal with what it has.
Why the Scale Matters for Celina
Celina consistently ranks among the fastest-growing cities in the country. That growth shows up in school enrollment figures, in the more than 60 active commercial developments currently being tracked across the city, and in the steady push of new neighborhoods spreading out from the Preston Road corridor toward the Outer Loop.
A city growing that quickly tends to outpace its public amenities. Parks, roads, and civic buildings built for a smaller population strain under the load. The Downtown Center project is a direct acknowledgment of that pressure — a bet, backed by $93.5 million, that Celina needs civic infrastructure that can grow with it rather than catch up to it.
The library piece of that bet carries particular weight. Public libraries are one of the few remaining community spaces that are genuinely free to use, open to everyone regardless of age or income, and capable of serving radically different needs at the same time. A child working through the Summer Reading Program tiers, an adult attending a computer class, a teenager using the space to study — a well-designed library holds all of that without conflict.
A Storybook Trail While You Wait
For families who want a library-flavored outing before the new building opens, Old Celina Park at 1270 FM 428 is already running a Storybook Trail this summer. The setup is simple: a story unfolds in installments as you walk the path through the park, so the reading happens outdoors, in motion, with whatever weather North Texas decides to offer.
It is a small thing compared to a 26,209-square-foot building with a rooftop terrace and a digital mural. But it captures something the bigger project is also reaching for — the idea that a library is not just a room full of books. It is wherever the community decides to gather around a story.
The construction fencing downtown will come down eventually. When it does, Celina will have a library built for the city it is becoming.