Why not just move in?

Living in a library - it's a book lover's dream. Living atop a library could be the next best thing. And, in what may be a first for Utah, that might be possible in a future branch near downtown.

While most libraries are built to stand alone, tentative designs for a Capitol Hill branch at 500 North and 300 West call for 24 condos to sit on top.

"It's what everybody's talking about these days, walkable neighborhoods," says architect Prescott Muir. "The best way to create a walkable neighborhood is to jumble it all up."

Muir is designing a mixed-use project on 300 West between 500 North and 600 North for Howa Capital. The company is developing the property - which would include a small grocery store, shops, up to 85 housing units and the library - for the city's Redevelopment Agency.

The library is no sure thing. No money is earmarked to build it or run it after voters refused in 2003 to raise their taxes to pay for it and another branch in Glendale. That bond failed by 149 votes.

But the city's library system does plan to build a branch in both neighborhoods eventually, and the RDA required a library be a part of the Capitol Hill redevelopment design.

At first, Muir considered a library a "black hole" in the development. An early design placed it out of the way on top of the grocery store.

But a subsequent market study showed the library should be the project's focal point, that it would lure customers to the surrounding stores. Now, designs have it on 500 North, on what's considered the development's most prominent corner.

The study didn't surprise library director Nancy Tessman.

"Libraries really genuinely are catalysts for neighborhood building. It's about shops and it's about services and it's about community and education. The more we can tie all those together, the more we create more good, healthy, positive neighborhoods."

She would prefer to build a stand-alone branch rather than combine the library with housing. A separate library would mean fewer compromises and fewer issues of parking and security. But Tessman is open to exploring the concept.

Library users are intrigued.

Rebekkah Coburn, 28, has visited the Main Library two or three times a week since moving recently from Seattle. She can see herself calling a library condo home. "You'd have this huge resource at your house. It wouldn't be loud. I would prefer living on top of a library than not," she says.

Mike Zumwalt has practically been living at the library for the past three to four months. He works from his laptop at the library two days a week and if he were younger - he's 49 - and didn't have children, he would consider a library condo.

"It would be sort of cool, as long as it's very secure," he says. "You could just run down, read magazines. If you want to step out and see people, suddenly there you are. It's sort of a fun idea, but bizarre. I can see it in Chicago, Los Angeles or Seattle."

Don't forget Portland, Ore. Three branch libraries in the county that includes Portland are mixed-use. To encourage more affordable housing, county leaders required every new county building be considered for housing. The Hollywood branch has the most housing units, with 47 apartments, and it's now the busiest branch in the country, with 2 million visitors last year, says June Mikkelsen, executive assistant to the Multnomah County library director.

Mikkelsen was library-renovation manager during the mixed-use push. She recalled concerns were raised about how libraries and residents would mix. Overall, Mikkelsen says, the combination has worked. She argues the branches are more secure because people are around them 24-7.

"I took a whole lot of calls before the [Hollywood branch] opened. People wanted to know how they could sign up for the housing. Almost without exception, they [thought] it would be a really neat idea to live above a library."

hmay@sltrib.com