1 week Ago By gneese
Even after two remodels, the century-old home and current site of the Flenniken Public Library in Carmichaels has hit the point, both in condition and in size, where it can’t meet the library’s needs, said director Nicole Mitchell. “We had an engineer come in, and it was going to be over $2 million just to fix what needs to be fixed here, and I still wouldn’t have the room I need,” she said of the building, the library’s home since 1961. “So we got talking and decided that we should build a new library.
” This month, the library launched the Pages in the Park capital campaign to potentially go towards the $1.6 million match needed for the $5 million grant it received from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture last year. A sign heralding the USDA grant is posted at the future site of the library in Cumberland Township’s Wana B Park, about a mile south of where the library now sits. The new library site would displace the baseball field closest to the road of the three on site, but would leave other amenities unaffected, Mitchell said.
The USDA funding, approved in a 2024 appropriations bill, will be available whenever the library can obtain the match, Mitchell said. Once spending starts on construction, they have to use the rest of the money within five years. Hopefully, said Mitchell, the capital campaign will not be needed for the local match; she said the hope is to be able to construct the entire building using grants.
The library has applied for multiple others, including the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, the next application window for which opens up in September. “We’ll be selling bricks and benches and things like that, just to raise a little bit more funds so we can decorate it really nicely,” she said. Ideally, the library would be able to begin construction in the spring of 2026, and have the new library ready to open a year after that, Mitchell said.
Plans call for a 15,000-square-foot building, up from the current library’s 4,000. About 8,000 square feet would be devoted to the library. The rest would be used as a community center, including a multi-purpose space and a community kitchen.
The community garden currently adjacent to the library would also be moved over, Mitchell said. After the library moves, it would look to sell the current building. The Flenniken had looked at several other spots first, Mitchell said — a vacant lot across the street, land across from Carmichaels Area High School, the former Crosspoint Assembly of God church.
Engineers found none to be feasible. Mitchell said the Wana B Park site was in line with numerous other places throughout the country where the library sat in the middle of the park. As the population of Carmichaels has shifted, the current site no longer sits in the heart of the community, she said.
“The original plans for the park had a community center in it, so actually, we would be doing what the original plan was, and having a community center there in the park,” she said. A sign marks the anticipated future home of the Flenniken Public Library in Wana B Park. The library began a capital campaign to supplement grants for the new building, which director Nicole Mitchell hopes to be in use in 2027.
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