Library board looked at building options

Thirty years ago this week, the community was looking at its options for the library.

The Oct. 21, 1993, edition of The Commercial Review featured a story about two options for a new Jay County Public Library.

Jay County Library Board reviewed two options at a meeting Oct. 20, both for about a 24,000-square-foot facility. Possible locations were the former C&C Lumber property on Ship Street in Portland and the vacant property owned by First National Bank across from the then-existing library on Walnut St. 

“These are not intended to be final designs,” said architect Mike Montgomery of K.R. Montgomery and Associations of Anderson. “In a way, they’re shots in the dark intended to help the board understand how a library could be organized.

The architects explained the various challenges of each site. The Ship Street location would require purchasing more land for parking, as the library will fill the former C&C property. Meanwhile the Walnut Street site was complicated by the location of the Millers Branch storm sewer that runs along an alley on the west edge of the property.

During previous discussions, the board had also looked at the possibility of utilizing the former Coca-Cola bottling plant on Arch Street for a new library. Other options had also been discussed, and none had been eliminated.

The library, which was looking at expanding because of limited space, had about $500,000 in its improvement fund for the project and planned to bond for about $2.2 million.

“We’ve been living on borrowed spaced for 20 years,” said library director Rosalie Clamme.

The new library was eventually constructed at its current site, the former C&C Lumber property at 315 N. Ship St., while the vacant bank property is now the site of The Hudson Center for the Visual Arts on the Jay County Campus of Arts Place. The former Coca-Cola plant became home to Museum of the Soldier.