SAN DIEGO -- A San Diego City Council committee gave staff the green light Wednesday to continue the bidding process for the downtown library so the project can qualify for a $20 million state grant.

At a meeting of the Committee on Rules, Open Government and Intergovernmental Relations, city officials requested $500,000 to finish bidding and said they plan to bring contract amendments to the full City Council in two weeks.

The project -- a dream of civic leaders for two decades -- is to replace the aging Main Library on E Street with a site at Park Boulevard and J Street adjacent to Petco Park. Two floors would be leased by the San Diego Unified School District for a charter school.

A deadline for the State Library Bond Act of 2000 was extended to August 2010, as long as the City Council approves the release of bids by Nov. 15 of this year.

City Council President Ben Hueso said a large portion of money raised for the library has come from charitable donations, and it "would be a shame" for all those dollars to be put up, only to lose bond funding.

"For all the people making an effort to make the library (project work), I'm very grateful," Hueso said.

Councilwoman Donna Frye told city staff that she wants to see solar power included in the plans, along with hiring preferences for local construction workers.

The money requested by staff is available in a redevelopment fund.

Project plans also need approval by the city's redevelopment agency and the Centre City Development Corp.

10News' Steve Fiorina asked San Diego Library Director Deborah Barrow about the number of people who use the central library. She issued the following response:

In 2004 our schedule was 64 hours open per week. Now it is 54 hours per week. As you can imagine, the number of hours open impacts usage. In 2004 circulation from the Central Library was 645,767 and this past year it was 585,715. However, we are providing more materials to our branch libraries from the Central Library than ever. In 2004 we provided 781,740 to branches whereas this past year we loaned branches 1,166,521 items. System-wide we had a record high of 7.6 million circulations. Use of the library system also occurs now from computers within the library as well as from school or home.

Our own experience opening new libraries has shown an explosion of use, and that certainly has been the case with other cities that have built new Central Libraries. For example, the new Central Library in Chicago, as well as the one in Seattle, helped to revitalize their downtowns. In the case of Seattle, which had a Central Library of the size and usage similar to San Diego's current Central Library, their new Central library tripled in use and has experienced between 7,000 to 8,000 visitors per day.

The materials you saw in the Library's basement are items still used by our communities but there is not enough room here to make these treasures available for the public to browse. The new Central Library will be a public place to be, a place to showcase these desired materials, obtain up-to-date information and bring the community together for programs and intellectual pursuits in a unique public space. Our libraries strive to be the heart of the community and the Central Library is the heart of the Library system.