NEW PALESTINE — Residents of the town of New Palestine honked excitedly as they drove past Hancock County Public Library officials turning the first shovels of dirt this week on the long-awaited $4.8 million Sugar Creek branch project.
The new library, planned for a site less than a mile west of the existing building at 5087 U.S. 52, is expected to open as soon as January 2018, said library director Dave Gray.
The new branch is planned to be about 15,000 square feet, more than double the size of its current location; the new site consists of about five acres in the 5800 block of U.S. 52. There will be plenty of room for outside programming — and room to grow in the future — Gray added.
The land was purchased from Justus Property Management, using $700,000 from the library system’s rainy day fund.
The site is adjacent to the Woodland Terrace senior living facility, owned by Justus. Plans call for the installation of sidewalks to enable Woodland Terrace residents and people living at the nearby senior cottages to walk to and from the library, town officials said.
The project is moving ahead years before originally planned, thanks to a $3.5 million gift from the estate of Ralph and Grace Rea the library received about a year ago. Had the library not received the gift from the Rea trust, the new branch would have been built in 2020-21 at the earliest, Gray said.
In 2016, before the library received the gift from the Rea estate, library officials had planned to keep the project below $2 million, because taking out loans more than that figure would have required undergoing the lengthy process of taking the decision to the public for a referendum vote.
For years, the board has weighed building a new branch or renovating the existing facility that serves the county’s west side; in 2010, the library made preliminary plans to move forward with a $985,000 renovation but later scrapped the effort, citing the still-unstable economy.
The new building will have a large children’s area, a designated teen section, more study and lounging areas, and large meeting and youth programming rooms.
In addition to adult sections and a circulation desk, plans call for an exterior programming section as well as a patio seating area, offices, storage space and an employee break room.
The new design will meet a trend of allowing patrons more seating options, Sherfield said. The library, which has eight staff members, does not anticipate a need for more workers.
About four years remain on the lease of the current Sugar Creek branch of the library, a 7,480-square-foot facility that once served as a drugstore.
The branch’s current location, at 5087 U.S. 52, has for years proven cramped for the increasing number of patrons visiting the New Palestine branch, causing problems with limited parking and overcrowded events. From 2012 to 2016, the library saw nearly 20,000 more visitors each year walk through its doors.
