PORT ANGELES — Two unneeded pieces of North Olympic Library System property have been put up for sale — with an offer already accepted on one — and library staff members plan to aim the revenue at much-needed capital improvements.
The library Board of Trustees voted at a special meeting last week to accept an offer from the Clallam County Genealogical Society for an unoccupied building at 402 E. Lauridsen Blvd., just across Peabody Street from the Port Angeles main branch, library system Director Paula Barnes said Friday.
At the same meeting, the board voted to surplus a vacant lot next to the Forks Library, she said.
The board had voted to list the Port Angeles building at $169,000 in late summer and just last week signed the listing agreement for the Forks property, now on the market for $19,000, Barnes explained.
Library staff and the board in 2010 had started discussing in earnest which of the library system’s properties were vital to operations and which were not, Barnes said, and the underused Port Angeles building and Forks lot were listed as holdings the library could part with.
Money expenditures
Barnes said the board could no longer justify spending money on maintaining both properties and decided to put them up for sale.
“We finally determined that the library should be in the library business and not the property-management business,” Barnes said.
For now, library staff members are using the Port Angeles building for storage to augment the capacity of a nearby house the library also owns and uses to stockpile extra office supplies and other materials, Barnes said.
With the proceeds of the sale, which is still in the works, she said, the library system hopes to replace the ailing house with something sturdier and more suitable for storage.
“It’s true that the stuff inside that house is holding up the house,” Barnes said.
Members of the Clallam County Genealogical Society were present at the Oct. 15 board meeting and public hearing to express their support for the sale, and Barnes said she thinks the society’s purchase of the building will go a long way in making the group’s research programs easier.
“If it goes through, it would be a great partnership because they’d be right across the street from the library,” Barnes said.
More space
Gail Porter, treasurer of the genealogical society, declined to give details on the society’s offer but said the group would be moving from its cramped office at 931 W. Ninth St. if the sale is finalized.
The new building would give the society about three times the space members currently inhabit near the intersection of Ninth and C streets, Porter said.
“We wouldn’t move for just a few more square feet,” she said with a laugh.
On the West End, Barnes said, library staff members are hoping to use the proceeds from the sale of the vacant lot to help fund restoration work on the Forks branch.
Barnes said the library system has not yet received offers on the lot, which lies just east of the Forks Library, though the property has not been on the market for that long.
“It’s a great location, right next to the library, if anyone is interested,” Barnes said.
The Forks branch’s roof replacement is at the top of a list of about a dozen improvements and renovations proposed for the building, Barnes said, work that is expected to cost a total of $775,000.
The library system itself has raised $600,000 for the improvements, which include upgrades to the building’s plumbing and electrical systems and the removal of some interior walls, and is relying on community donations to make up the remaining $175,000, Barnes said.
As of last week, Forks Friends of the Library has helped raise about $66,000 toward the library improvement fund, Forks branch manager Theresa Tetreau said.
Roof replacement
The 40-year-old flat roof has had to be patched multiple times in various spots, Tetreau said, and is simply not able to handle the wet weather that is a part of life on the West End.
“We live in a climate where we get about 120 inches [of rain] per year,” she said. “It’s hard on a flat roof.”
Tetreau said she hopes the planned improvements, which also include upgrades to the library’s computers, make modern technology more accessible to all library patrons.
“It would be great to offer the community a 21st-century library,” Tetreau said.
To learn more about the planned Forks branch’s renovations, visit the branch’s website at http://tinyurl.com/pdn-library.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
