Roxborough Library Giving Way for Sterling Ranch
Douglas County Libraries grapples with growth, efficiency, and investment
Douglas County Libraries has made upgrading and replacing library facilities a priority of the past decade - and has done so entirely within its annual revenues - no tax increases or bond measures.
Guiding that work is the Library’s Facilities Master Plan, which sets maintenance standards for existing buildings and establishes design and size specifications for new construction. The plan ensures consistency across the library system and gives residents, municipalities, and community partners a clear picture of what to expect from their local library.
In September of 2022, the Library Board adopted the updated 2030 Facilities Master Plan identifying a new DCL-owned building in the Roxborough/Sterling Ranch area as the next priority for library service. Completion of this building would achieve the goal of bringing all facilities up to current practice standards, ending the current lease situation at the Roxborough library location, and right-sizing library service for the growing population in northwest Douglas County. [Note: see pages 29-63 of the January 29, 2025 Board Business Meeting Packet, and pages 25-29 of the January 28, 2026 Board Annual Business Meeting]
In January 2025, Executive Library Director, Bob Pasicznyuk, presented the Board of Trustees with the plan’s priorities for new construction, identifying three communities slated for expanded library service:
Northwest Douglas County in or near the Sterling Ranch development
Lone Tree’s Ridgegate East community
The Canyons area east of I-25 in Castle Pines
The top priority: a new library for Northwest Douglas County.
Why a New Library Is Needed
The current library serving the northwest part of the county is a roughly 5,200 square foot, second-floor rental space in the Roxborough Safeway retail strip. It has served the community for approximately 19 years.
By the numbers, it is the most undersized library in the county. The facility provides just 0.29 square feet of useable library space per person - about 30% less than the next smallest branch, the Castle Rock library, which offers 0.41 square feet per person, based on the population in the area.
The gap is expected to widen significantly. Population in Northwest Douglas County is projected to increase between 50-100% by 2040. If that growth materializes and no new facility is built, the usable space per person at the current Roxborough branch would drop to about 0.15 square feet - making an already constrained facility far less able to service its community.
Beyond space limitations, the facility does not meet the standards the Board of Trustees has established for library facilities in the district, as it does not offer things like large-scale event hall rentals, audio/video recording studios, Adobe Creation Stations, in-house laptops, and exam proctoring, based on the offerings at each location identified on the Library’s website.
Square Feet of Library Per Capita
The Plan
The Board approved a plan to construct a new 16,000-square-foot library in the Sterling Ranch development in January 2025. The new facility would be more than three times the size of the currently leased facility in Roxborough - and the new building would be owned not leased.
The new building would offer a 2-story structure, and include amenities and services consistent with other Douglas County Library branches, many of which are not currently available to northwest county residents.
The site - just under 3 acres located near Titan Road and across from the first planned Sterling Ranch elementary school - was donated by Sterling Ranch developers. It is large enough to accommodate a future expansion to 30,000 square feet if community growth warrants it. The design also allows for phased additions, so capacity can be added as population and resources allow.
The library’s capital reserves are sufficient to fund the project. When the plan was approved in January 2025, construction was planned for 2026, with the anticipated completion and opening in 2027 at a cost of $21.65 million.
At the January 2025 Board meeting, the Board approved the project, scope, timeline and budget.
The Site Selection Process
The January 2025 annual board meeting included public comment on the new library. Two community members expressed support for the new, larger library, without preference on location. One community member asked that the library maintain a presence in Roxborough and offered to donate a different plot of land through the Chatfield Farms HOA that could be used for a new location in Roxborough.
The Board asked for an independent comparative evaluation of both sites: the planned Sterling Ranch location and the newly offered Roxborough alternative. That evaluation was completed by Fransen Pittman, and reported at the February 2025 board meeting.
Staff identified several concerns with the newly offered Roxborough site:
The land is currently zoned as a drainage site, and had stormwater containment requirements
It was inconveniently located
Accessibility was poor, as the only access point was through the Safeway shopping area
Parking would have been a challenge
Based on those findings - and the fact that the projected population growth is more concentrated around the Sterling Ranch area - staff recommended proceeding with the Sterling Ranch site. The library board was grateful for the generous offer from the Chatfield Farms HOA, but the results of the study confirmed it would not be an ideal location.The Board voted unanimously to move forward with the original land, and entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Sterling Ranch developers for the land donation.
What This Means for Roxborough Residents
In September, 2025 the Board approved an extension of the current lease for the Roxborough location to account for the time to build the new Sterling Ranch facility. Once the new facility is open, DCL plans to transition all operations in northwest Douglas County to the new location.
Learn More: Attend A Library Board Meeting
The Library Board is a member of the Partnership of Douglas County Governments and participates in their meetings.
Library Board Business Meetings are held the last Wednesday of each month (excluding July and November) in Lone Tree, 5:30PM. Public comment is welcomed.
Board Study Sessions: 4:00pm before Board business meetings, as needed.
Executive Committee Meetings: Monthly, typically the Thursday two weeks prior to Board Business meetings in Castle Pines at 8:00am.