Photos: Inside The New, $41M Hunters Point Library In Queens

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — The Hunters Point Library opens to the public Tuesday, eight years after plans were first unveiled and over two decades after residents first floated the idea.

The $41 million project has weathered its fair share of delays, design changes and detractors from the time the plan started taking shape in 2009.

Still, city officials say it was worth it.

"It is that aspirational civic structure for this century," City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer said Thursday as construction crews and library staffers readied the glassy, waterfront building for its grand debut.

Van Bramer, a former Queens Public Library staffer, is largely responsible for ushering the library over its many hurdles, when others wanted to settle for a humbler (and cheaper) building.

He started working on the project as the library's chief external affairs officer, and it became a pillar of his first City Council campaign in 2009.

"It's probably the single most important project of my life," he said.

The library will house 50,000 books, including a couple thousand each in Spanish and Chinese, at a cost of roughly $1.5 million.

There is a cyber room with 20 desktop computers, a meeting room that seats 140 people and a children's room that will host playtime for toddlers and preschoolers.

An environmental education center will teach students of all ages about plant and marine life, pollution, composting and recycling.

Its design by Steven Holl Architects, a celebrated firm behind public projects across the globe, features warm bamboo interiors and a concrete facade interrupted by large slices of window that New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman referred to as "whimsical jigsaw puzzle pieces" in his recent review.

"I don't think it took that long given what the building is," project architect Olaf Schmidt said.

Weary neighbors may beg to differ, but excitement is building in the neighborhood: One passerby on Thursday anxiously asked officials if the building was open yet.

At 22,000 square feet, the library cost taxpayers roughly $1,863 per square foot, based on the final cost estimate from NYC Department of Design and Construction Commissioner Thomas Foley.

That's double the median cost of $930 per square foot for capital projects managed by the Department of Design and Construction, according to a 2017 report by the think tank Center for an Urban Future.

Asked to justify the cost to taxpayers, city officials stood fast.

"I disagree with the premise that 37 million [sic] is a lot of money for a beautiful, iconic structure that will endure for generations," Department of Design and Construction spokesperson Andrew Hollweck told Patch. "This is more than just a library."

Correction: This article originally stated the cost of the library was $37 million, citing information from the NYC Department of Design and Construction. The cost is $41 million. The estimated cost per square foot has been updated accordingly.