Bookworms have been waiting more than 30 years for Brighton's new central library and it is now finally taking shape.

Huge concrete columns support a high ceiling, making it look like a cathedral for the printed word.

The Argus was given a tour of the building, which is scheduled to open in March next year, replacing the temporary Brighton library in Vantage Point, near Preston Circus.

This £12 million library is three times bigger than the former building in Church Street, now part of the Dome complex.

It is part of a much larger project regenerating the Jubilee Street area of Brighton, opposite the Dome.

Two other features of the new development will be a central square and a boutique hotel of about 90 bedrooms.

There will also be 70 homes, shops, offices, restaurants and a health clinic.

The old music library in Church Road will become a bar/restaurant and the old courthouse next door will be refurbished to provide an educational centre and a lecture theatre.

Surrounded by scaffolding, the library is a building hard to appreciate from the outside at the moment. But the first windows and tiles are now being applied which will give passers-by a better idea of its form.

The building will have a contemporary, clean design, featuring a south-facing frontage mainly of glass. Thousands of dark blue/green hand-made ceramic glazed tiles are being applied to the west wall.

It has been designed to be the most environmentally friendly library in the country with solar heating and natural ventilation.

The colourful and stylish ground floor will be the main lending area and will feature terminals where people can check out their own books if they wish. There will also be a cafe, bookshop, exhibition area and audio-visual library.

On the mezzanine floor at first-floor level will be offices for staff, a book store and a small conference suite.

The top floor has been designed to appear to float above the main room, with wonderful views inside and out.

It will house the main reading area, a large IT suite and learning centre. This will house the special collections - about 45,000 items of historic publications and documents previously unavailable for public access.

There will be more than 90 computers for public use.

In front of the library there will be a public square.

Three eye-catching projects will be created under a council scheme which insists artwork should be created in big projects.

In the children's library there will be a wall of 1,000 stories by Kate Malone with 120 ceramic wall plaques featuring images to inspire children.

Georga Russell's sculpture of cut paper trapped in a suspended glass panel in the foyer and abstract orb shapes by Caroline Barton in the square will both be illuminated at night The library is a private finance initiative (PFI) project approved by the Government under which the council won permission to enter into a deal with a consortium.

This has arranged the building of the library and will provide services like maintenance and cleaning.

The council then leases the building back from the consortium, with an option to buy after 25 years, and will always run the library.

The Mill Group, which has great experience of PFI projects, is the lead developer, with funding by Norwich Union.

Sussex firm Llewellyn/ROK is the building contractor while Lomax Cassidy Edwards, the Brighton-based architects' practice, is also master planner for the whole regeneration scheme.

London-based Bennetts Associates designed the library.

If all goes well, the library will open next spring and the hotel in winter 2005 or spring 2006.

Some affordable housing should be ready this June and the private housing, shops and restaurants finished by summer 2005.

Mike McLean, a director of Llewellyn/ROK, said: "It is a building people will like when they see it."

Tom Symes, Mill Group director, said PFI had got a bad name thanks to some over-time, over-budget projects but without it the Brighton library building would not have got off the ground in its present form.