Dirt moves to make way for the new library

by Susan O'Neill
The day was rainy, windy and cold, but approximately 50 people braved the weather on Saturday to celebrate the groundbreaking for the new Sugar Grove Public Library building.
“Today's weather is appropriate,” said Perry Clark, Sugar Grove economic development director and emcee for the ceremony. “The library has weathered the storm. This is the day they've been waiting for, for a long time.”
Library District residents in November 2004 approved an $8 million referendum to fund a new building, but finding an appropriate site took several years and proved difficult.
The Library Board ultimately purchased a 5-acre site from the development company, The Windham Group. The land, on the site of the developer's Prairie Glen Subdivision, is located off Route 30 across Municipal Drive from Village Hall and south of the Sugar Grove Fire Station.
Village President Sean Michels was among a number of elected officials attending the ceremony, including U.S. Rep. Bill Foster. Michels said the library building will make a nice addition to the municipal campus along Municipal Drive.
“A year from now, we're going to have a lot to celebrate,” Michels said.
The targeted opening date of the new 25,500-square-foot building is September 2009. The new building will provide students and others with study rooms for research, space for community gatherings and a Library Friends' book store and coffee shop, separate areas for children, teens and adults, and a quiet reading room with a fireplace.
Library Board President Art Morrical said the groundbreaking ceremony represents an important milestone in the solution to the library's growing needs for space. The current 6,000-square-foot building, located at Snow and Main streets and home to the Sugar Grove Library since it was built in 1980, has been stretched beyond capacity for several years.
Morrical said additional space was needed to accommodate current and future population growth within Sugar Grove with more room for library materials, public access to computers and technologies, programs, and community-organization meetings.
“Our new building gives us an opportunity to provide resources and services that benefit everyone in the community,” Morrical said. “Libraries not only change individual lives, but entire communities.”
Morrical accepted a $370,000 donation on behalf of the library from the Anthony J. Rich family in memory of Anthony's daughter Janice, a teacher in the Chicago area who passed away at age 29. The money will be used to create the Janice Catherine Rich Technology Learning Center within the new library.
Keith Rich, Anthony's grandson and son of Jerry Rich of Rich Harvest Farms, attended the groundbreaking ceremony to represent his family.
“Thanks to this gift, we will be able to offer our patrons access to the latest information technologies and learning media,” Morrical said. “The Learning Center is a real dream come true for the Library Board. We are so glad that the Rich family recognizes and supports the value of the library in this community. Let's hope that they inspire others to give as well."
Local architect John Cordogan of Cordogan, Clarke and Associates, designed the new building. However, he said that it is the library staff that make the building the patron-friendly place that it is today.
“We love what we do, and we do it for you,” Library Director Beverly Holmes Hughes told the crowd. “It will be a pleasure to do so in a building with room to grow.”
Although the library has adequate funds to buy the land and build the library, residents repeatedly have rejected an increase in operating expenses to run the new building, as well as adequately run the current facility.
The library has had to cut its hours of operation, hold off on additions to its collections and eliminate programs in order to remain solvent. The library will ask residents in November for an increase in the property-tax rate to meet the operating needs of the new building.

05/09/2008