Prescott Gets New Library

PRESCOTT - The Walla Walla County Rural Library District has purchased an $85,000 property from the Prescott School District to build a new home for the Prescott Library as part of an effort to revamp its county wide branch system.

Aletha Bonebrake, the district's interim director, said her organization district had been looking for a location in Prescott to build a new 2,600-square foot library, which would be nearly three times the size of the current 900-square-foot facility.

The district, which has a $5.4 million budget to also expand facilities in Bur- bank, Touchet and the Walla Walla area, was looking for a Prescott site that was cen- trally located with easy street access.

The rural district had approached the Prescott School District to inquire about property it may be willing to sell and it just happened to have a vacant home avail- able on Second and D streets. The home had been used as a residence for district teachers and had been vacant for some time, said Amy Rosenberg, the branch supervisor of the Prescott Library.

"It's a superb location and just the right size," Bone- brake said.

Bonebrake recently re- ceived the deed and keys. She has been working on pre- liminary drawings of the new building with Walla Walla- based architect Jon Camp- bell, who was selected from three competitors through a recent bid process. She said her district will reach out for public input on the de- sign, which uses the existing single-family home structure as the core. Initial drawings call for a flexible central space that can accommodate regular library activities and community meetings, computer desks and a corner for kid's activities in line of sight of the check-out desk.

Once the design is com- pleted, the library district will put a bid out for construction, which Bonebrake hopes can begin within a year of the purchase. The library district has set aside about $665,000 of its total construction bud- get for the site, construction, furnishings, taxes and archi- tectural work, the interim director said.

Rosenberg said she is thrilled to get a new library that could have a separate space for kids, special activi- ties and programs like crafts and guest speakers.

"It's going to be quite a bit larger than what we're in right now," she said.

Currently, if the Prescott Library is hosting a large event, it has to borrow the Lions Club hall next door to accommodate the crowd.

Rosenberg dreams of a space for people to hang out, visit and browse books. She said there's no place like that in Prescott and it would benefit the entire community.

The library branch in Vista Hermosa was also to be expanded by the rural library district, but after a presentation to the Vista Hermosa Founda- tion, Bonebrake said the board decided not to move forward with any changes. Representatives from the Vista Hermosa Foundation did not return calls from the Times.

And while the construction news in Prescott has community members buzz- ing, Rosenberg and the Friends of the Library are still hard at work. The group will hold a bake sale from 8 to 11 a.m. on Dec. 15 and 16, to coincide with the community breakfast at the Lions Club hall.

The current library in a donated portion of the Lions Club building on D Street was launched in 1999 in a collaborative ef- fort between city residents and the rural district.