Heather Jenkner of North Huntingdon took her son, Lukas, 4, to the Sewickley Township Public Library in Herminie for story time for pre-schoolers last week with the hope that in a year or so, she might be taking him to a new facility.
“It’ll be more space for the kids and activities in general. It would be really nice to have a bigger space for activities for everybody,” Jenkner said.
The state gave $1 million boost to construct the new library on a vacant parcel next to the H.W. Good Elementary School in Herminie.
“We are so excited to be able to provide a safe, new space for many years to come,” said Marci Suggars, president of the Sewickley Township Public Library board.
“Everything is sort of falling in place,” said Mandy Luchs, director of the Sewickley Township library.
The library board would like to begin construction on the site this year or early next year. They have had discussions with a contractor about the building, which would be one-story and approximately 4,000 square feet in size, Suggars said.
“We’re not eliminating any possibility, but it has to be a quality building. We want to do as much of a building as we can within the budget and as high quality as we can get,” Suggars said.
That’s good news for the library’s 960 cardholders, Luchs said.
The library board has been planning for a new building since its home in the basement of the former Sewickley Township Recreation Center in Herminie closed in February 2023 after engineers determined the old school building was structurally unsound and had to be demolished. The Yough School Board gave the library board the parcel last year and the Sewickley Township supervisors approved a subdivision plan that separated the parcel from the school building.
The library reopened in April 2023 in the first floor of the former township municipal authority building in downtown Herminie. The township supervisors had given the library use of the building, but, it is a smaller space, forcing the forced the library to put about two-thirds of its collection into storage, Suggars said.
The library benefits from being part of the Westmoreland Library Network, which allows card holders to get materials from other libraries in the county.
“We don’t have a home. We have to have one,” Suggars said.
Broadband grant
To remedy that, the Sewickley library sought a $1.9 million grant from the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority’s multipurpose community facilities program, Suggars said. The cost of the project was estimated to be about $2.21 million, according to the broadband development authority.
“It’s almost like it (program) was designed for us, like it was tailor-made for our needs,” Suggars said.
Supporting the construction of a full-service publicly-accessible community building illustrates the mission of the multi-purpose community facilities program, said Brandon Carson, executive director of the broadband development authority. It will allow broadbandenabled work, study and tele-health activities for residents lacking high-speed internet access at home, Carson said.
Having the library provide access to broadband service is critical in a rural community like Sewickley, where broadband service is not available in some areas, Suggars said. In some cases, residents can’t afford the cost of connecting to a broadband service or the monthly fee, Suggars said.
“The number of households with high-speed internet access in Sewickley Township is lower than the state average,” Carson said. This project returns to the community a free-standing library building,
Luchs said they explained in the state application that broadband service would be made available to residents in the new building and there would be private space for online job interviews or telehealth appointments. The internet also could be used for education.
“It was a long shot because there were hundreds and hundreds of applicants,” Luchs said.
Sewickley Township was one of the smaller communities to receive at least $1 million from the statewide allocation of $45 million allocated for 49 projects.
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To cover the funding gap between the grant and the cost of the project, Suggars said they will seek financial support from foundations and individual donors.
The children’s services they provide could be a reason for some foundations to provide support, said Luchs, who worked on the state application with Bob McPherson, a former chief of staff for Westmoreland County Commissioner Doug Chew.
Luchs said they have worked with a library consultant, Richard Bowra, a retired library executive director from Dauphin County, for recommendations on how to divide the space in the building.
“My board is a ‘glass half-full’ people. We are determined that this is going to happen,” Suggars said.