Santa Monica's Grant Elementary Library Plan Went From $8.15 Million to $18.8 Million

The expanded library and innovation lab, now open, were budgeted in the first sale of Measure QS school bonds, which voters approved for $495 million.

Santa Monica's school district first priced a bigger library for Grant Elementary at $8.15 million, the Santa Monica Daily Press reported. When the district budgeted the work in its newest bonds, the line read $18.8 million, the Santa Monica Daily Press reported later.

The library and a new innovation lab opened with a ribbon cutting Oct. 14, the Santa Monica Daily Press reported Oct. 24. In the lab, students will design buildings meant to survive natural disasters and use architecture to model small towns, the Santa Monica Daily Press reported.

The smaller number goes back to December 2020. That's when the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District's facilities staff pitched the school board on a first round of campus work paid for with Measure SMS money. Grant's share was $8.15 million to enlarge and renovate the library, redo the courtyard and bring the Pre-K and kindergarten rooms and yards together, the Santa Monica Daily Press reported then.

The same three pieces came back in February 2025 under one name, the Grant Library, Courtyard and Early Elementary project. They were budgeted at $18.8 million in the first sale of Measure QS bonds, the Santa Monica Daily Press reported. Voters had approved that $495 million measure in November 2024, and on Feb. 20 the board OK'd selling up to $200 million of it, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press. The 2025 figure is about 2.3 times the 2020 one.

Johnson Favaro, the architecture firm that designed the project, lists the results on its own project page. The library now runs 9,500 square feet, gained a 250-square-foot addition and has overhead doors on each of its four sides, with a maker space sitting beside a classroom. Outside, the firm reworked a 10,700-square-foot historic central garden, saving its old trees and adding outdoor classrooms. The firm says construction wrapped up this year.

The published reports don't say how much of the jump came from a bigger project and how much from higher prices, or whether any of the older Measure SMS money also went into it. The Daily Press's Oct. 24 story says only that voter-approved bond measures paid for it. In the same month the board approved the first Measure QS sale, the district's financial adviser, Jon Isom, warned the board that rebuilding after the Palisades Fire would push up costs. He said "concrete is going to be more expensive," and steel, wood and labor too, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press.

Grant's bill isn't finished. The biggest Grant item in that first Measure QS sale wasn't the library. It was $31.2 million for a new classroom building, the Santa Monica Daily Press reported.

Source: smdp.com, retrieved October 26, 2026. Other sources: smdp.com (2), smdp.com (3), johnsonfavaro.com.