Officials plan new library

By CAITLIN SULLIVAN/Staff

Town and county officials and residents discussed designs for a new Damascus library at a planning meeting last week.
Suggestions for the new facility included building two or three separate rooms and one large one for youth and adult literacy program, according to Town Council and Library Board member Jim Cartwright.

“We are wanting this building to incorporate many energy-saving materials as we can,” Washington County Public Library Director Charlotte Parsons said. 

Wireless Internet connections and laptops with Webcast capabilities may also be available, she said.

A preliminary site plan will be completed by the first of September, Parsons said, and with that design it will be easier to raise additional funding for the project.

So far the money pledged toward the new library includes $300,000 from the county, $100,000 from the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, $30,000 from Damascus and $20,000 from fundraisers. Parsons said an additional $200,000 would likely be needed to complete the project.

She said a 5,000-square-foot library on Water Street in Damascus will cost between $100 and $130 per square foot.

Although she’d like the outside to look like the train depot that used to be located in Damascus, it all depends on funding.
“Hopefully it will be a stepping stone for the town to do more [tourism] development,” Parsons said.

So far this year, tourists from 42 states and 14 countries visited the small, 1,700-square-foot library currently located in Damascus. Parsons said the new library would also serve as a tourism center at least until the town builds its own.

Cartwright said that’s unlikely.

“It’s volunteer tourism [in Damascus],” he said. “We can’t afford to tax the population of Damascus to provide a full tourism office.”

Parsons said it would be another one and a half to two years before the new Damascus library is complete.

That was a delay Cartwright expected.

“Government works very slowly,” he said.

In other library news, the Hayters Gap Public Library will undergo $150,000 worth of expansion in the coming months. The expansion will double the size of the library to 2,179 square-feet and should take two or three months, Parsons said.

To contact Caitlin Sullivan e-mail or call (276) 628-7101.