The Hall Perrine Foundation is giving a $3-million grant to the effort to rebuild the flooded Cedar Rapids Public Library. Grants from FEMA and that state will pay for most of the estimated $45-million cost of rebuilding and putting in new updated technology.

Library information officer Amber Mussman says this new private grant puts the rest of their fundraising goals within reach. “This is absolutely the greatest support that we’ve gotten up to this point. It’s estimated that this is a little less

than maybe half of what we have left to raise,” Mussman says, “so we know what we’re up against, there’s a lot of projects in our area and there’s a recession on and times are tough for everybody, but we also know that this library is valuable to the community.”

The new library will be 95,000 square feet.“When we lost our library each one of us lost something,so when these doors open and they see that this library’s not just something that they had before but something spectacular, something state of the art, something that really this community deserves and needs, I think they’re gonna be absolutely thrilled,” Mussman says.

Mussman says they expect to begin construction this summer, with a grand opening planned for the summer of 2013.