Flenniken Library planning remodel, expansion
$6.6 million project will keep library at current Carmichaels site
CARMICHAELS – The Flenniken Library plans to stay put — but in a renovated and expanded facility.
After originally planning to construct a new building at Wana B Park, the Carmichaels library has shifted focus to a $6.6 million project to remodel the existing library, as well as building an adjacent two-story community center and community kitchen.
Funding opportunities were one reason for the switch, said executive director Nicole Mitchell. An anonymous donor contributed to the library with the condition that it remain at the existing location.
The current spot on George Street is also more conveniently located, Mitchell said.
The Wana B Park site “kind of pulled us away from the center of town,” she said.
So far, public response to the change has been “98% positive,” Mitchell said.
Plans call for the original 1904 house to be restored, tearing off the “weird mishmash” of subsequent additions, Mitchell said.
Structural issues first prompted the library to look at repairs pre-COVID, which even then carried a price tag of $2 million for a basic fix, Mitchell said.
The children’s room, which dates back to 1983, is pressing against the main part of the building, causing structural damage that can be seen in cracks on the walls, Mitchell said.
“Even just to save the library, the stuff we were looking at, why we wanted to move, now has to be taken care of,” she said.
Ideas for the remodeled library include creating a separate room for the library’s archive of historical materials from the coal mining era, which would also include space for people looking to do research, Mitchell said.
A centrally located elevator would be used to transport people between floors of both the library and the adjacent community center.
The community center and kitchen space would be used to host some of the library’s bigger events, such as the library’s kickoff of its summer reading program. More than 100 people attended this year’s event, which featured a visit from the Pittsburgh Zoo.
Having the community center would also allow the library to bring back popular programs like yoga, Mitchell said.
“It outgrew our space, so we had to stop doing it because we had too many people,” she said.
And the community kitchen would be able to host its cookbook club, which is run through Penn State University Extension’s Seed to Supper program.
“We would like to grow vegetables in the community garden as part of that, and then show people how to prepare them and hold those classes in the community center,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said the library will still be able to submit a change to the project scope to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to receive $5 million in funding it had obtained for the Wana B Park site.
That still requires a $1.6 million match.
Last week, the county received $1 million in Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) funding from the state.
With a feasibility study on the expansion completed, the library is getting ready to relaunch its capital campaign, Mitchell said.
“Our goal is to keep it at $6.6 (million),” she said. “I don’t know that that’s where we’ll be, but that’s what we’re definitely trying for.”
The library is working with local and regional organizations for the match. It has applied for the state’s Neighborhood Assistance Program, where companies could write a check for a specific project and receive a percentage back in tax credits. So far, the library has applied for a $225,000 commitment from Community Bank and First Federal Bank that would go to refacing and repointing the brick in the current building, as well as redoing the windows and stonework.
The library would have to move temporarily elsewhere in Carmichaels. Mitchell said they’re looking at two sites in town.
Mitchell said she would be out of the library portion of the building for a year, and then would be able to move back in as work continues on the other half.
“The ‘super-everything falling into place’ timeline would be we start next summer, but I think that’s optimistic,” Mitchell said. “But, hey, it could happen.”