[00:00:01] Speaker A: You.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Benville Public Library opened at its current location on Main Street 17 years ago this month, but officials have determined they already need more space, so they're adding on at a cost of more than $16 million. We're going to talk about that with the Benville Library's longtime director on this week's edition of the Know The News podcast.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: You.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Welcome everybody to know the news. A production of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Newsroom. I'm Dave Perozic. Your host this week. Joining me on the podcast, I have two special guests.
First, I want to introduce Mike Jones. He's our Benville City reporter, and he's working on a story that we'll publish this weekend about the library expansion project. Mike, thanks for being here.
[00:00:55] Speaker C: Thanks for having me on, Dave.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: I also want to welcome on library director Hattie Dudley Hadley. Thanks for taking some time to talk to us today.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Thank you, Dave. And thank you, Mike. I'm glad to be here this morning.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Hattie, let's start with you. There's always a lot happening at the library, but now you have a lot more happening with construction underway. I believe it's already started.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: Yes, that's correct. So we began construction late April of this year is around National Library Week. We kicked off a groundbreaking ceremony, and we've been working ever since, making really good progress in recent weeks. In the last month or so, a little bit more visible progress on the expansion and how things are going to shape up for our community with that expansion and growth.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: So where is the work happening right now?
[00:01:58] Speaker A: So the majority of the work is happening north of the library. We have a couple of lots that we've acquired over the last few years.
One lot was purchased from a private business owner by the City of Batonville, and then two parcels of property were donated to the library by our library foundation. So that gave us a good footprint, a nice canvas to be able to design an efficient and larger library. So just north of the library, what we used to call our backyard is now full of concrete and rebar and all kinds of construction material instead of being the yard anymore. But we're excited about that to see that progress.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: And could you give us, in a nutshell, what the plan is there for the facility, how this project is going to transform the library?
[00:02:56] Speaker A: I will try to do that. In a nutshell, it's such a great project for our community. It's really hard to just kind of keep it general, but I will try very hard. So we are adding over 22,000 sqft. We're currently at 38,000 sqft. So we'll be sizably larger, about 61,250 sqft. When we're all done. But what I like to say is we're really just making room for more. You mentioned there's a lot going on at the library. There is, all of the time, and we just want to make more room for more of the great things that our community has come to expect from Bettenville Public Library. We'll have more room for stacks, for books and materials. We'll have more room for people to come to library programs, story times, crafts, more meeting space, more collaboration area. Just more of a good thing.
We're also offering a few new amenities, too, that I can definitely touch on.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Go right ahead.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah, good. So our newest amenities are things we currently really don't have the space for that we're offering. One is what's called a maker space, and you both may be familiar with that terminology or that kind of activity in libraries or museums, but it's basically a space that's going to be very versatile. We will have tables and chairs and stools, but lots of equipment and materials and supplies and technology for people to come in and make things. They can tinker, they can code, they can craft, they can just create.
When we started asking our community what they wanted in a maker space, it ran the gamut. So it's a little bit of everything. It literally is something from 3D printing to going back to kind of old school crafts like knitting or sewing. So that's what we're really learning about our community is they like to experience all different kinds of learning and all different kinds of things. So that's how we'll kind of stock that maker space is making sure we have all those different kinds of things.
So that's kind of a new option. We also have what we're calling a business center and community hub. That'll be a place where people can do a quick touchdown to do some technology, printing, copying, that sort of thing. But also some adaptive technologies, things that people with different abilities would be able to use in that space, as well as kind of a social services hub where you can kind of see what kind of resources are available for different community needs in Bettenville and the Northwest Arkansas region. So just those nice little touchdown.
Yeah. I mean, when I think about the expansion, what it's going to mean for our library and for our community? Like I said, it's kind of hard to put in a nutshell, some of my favorite spaces have changed over the course of this project, really thinking through that outdoor connection because nature and outdoor and sunlight is so important and it's kind of a value in our community. So we've got expanded veranda setting. We've got a lot of natural light coming into the building. We're expanding our learning gardens. So like I said earlier, all kind of all the things that we enjoy now, we're just kind of amplifying, if you will.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Nice. And as I mentioned, Mike has a story on the library this weekend. Mike, can you tell us a little bit about that?
[00:06:37] Speaker C: Yes, Dave. We'll be taking a look at maybe an unrecognized part of the library.
We think a lot of times of the children's library and the stacks and things like that, but kind of looking at usage of study rooms, which, if you've been there at 09:00 in the morning when the library opens, there's kind of a rush to those rooms for people and conference rooms where there are numerous groups and organizations outside of the city of Bentonville that hold meetings in these rooms. And these meeting rooms are also filled a lot during the week. And as Hattie will, the some of the community rooms or meeting rooms have been kind of eaten up in space by some of the other events that happen at the library that flow over into those spaces. And so the library is adding more study rooms and expanding some conference rooms and adding some new conference rooms as well.
That is one part of the story, and another part is talking on the second phase of fundraising that's going on right now. The library had a successful phase, one fundraising initiative, and now just trying to wrap up the last little bit of money needed, but that's the focus of it this weekend.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Great. I love, Mike, how you know our project inside and out. Now, I believe since you covered the library expansion and our foundation and the funding and the city bond, all of that community has come together for that. But I appreciate you're the expert now in the public library.
[00:08:22] Speaker C: Well, I do have one question for you, Hattie. Would you explain kind of the concept of the third space, the library not as home and not as work, but kind of how the library envisions a third space to everyone that comes in?
[00:08:40] Speaker A: Yes. Thank you. I hadn't heard much about a third space until we started doing some assessment for what our library could be as we expand. But it really is kind of that place. It's like literally a third space. It's a social environment that's welcoming. It's comfortable, it's inclusive. It's a place that you can just kind of come and feel like you belong there. It's not work. It's not home. Of course, home is our first space. Work is our second space. It's that other place where you can exchange ideas with others. You can work solo on a project and just feel good about being there.
It's more of an essential space, I think, for people than what we realize, and maybe we don't think about it as much, but definitely the public library serves as that third space now. And as we expand and when we remodel some of the areas you mentioned, like the meeting space and the study rooms, we'll have lots of comfortable seating for adults as well. Then I think that feel, what we're calling a book club lounge, has a living room feel will really kind of generate that idea of a third space even more.
Yeah, that's good.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: What what do you see as being the biggest impact on patrons during this construction? Period or how much are they going to be impacted by that or will they be?
[00:10:14] Speaker A: That's a really good question right now. I'd say it's the noise level.
Mike is here sometimes, and he knows we're not a quiet little library.
Just recently, our construction management team is Flintco, and their contractors were busting through I call it busting through. They were jackhammering through the existing wall in the children's department. That's going to be the opening to the expansion. So it's been a little bit noisy.
We're hoping to stay open as much as possible. There may be times when we shut down a little bit of our portions of our public library and maybe use a secondary entrance to get into some areas. I haven't fully developed our plan for when we relocate children's and teen to the new addition. We may have to close down a little bit or have some limited hours to make sure we can get all of our materials moved and be not a safety issue or a negative impact on our patrons who come in. But we anticipate the addition being done next summer, so our summer reading plan may look a little different. We'll just kind of have to navigate that, and we hope people will be I'm certain people will be very patient and kind with that transition time period.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Yeah. The stereotype of the perfectly quiet library is going to be busted a little bit this coming year, and we touched on it. But the fundraising campaign, can you talk about that a little bit and how much farther you need to go?
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Yes, that's great.
So you mentioned, Dave, that our project cost is 16.75 million.
Earlier, we had a bond through the City of Bettenville of $4.5 million dedicated for this project.
The Library Foundation committed to helping us fundraise, and they've raised $10.8 million since the fundraising kicked off two years ago. A significant investment from community members like individuals and donors who are invested in our library, but also family trust, family foundations, and even some corporate groups. Definitely, like, some of the businesses have stepped up. And those kinds of donations usually come with a naming opportunity. So someone can walk in and visit the Walmart Foundation community room and the Walmart Foundation public veranda because they contributed $1.5 million for that naming opportunity.
And then, for example, Arvest Bank recently contributed, and there's a specific meeting room that will carry the Arvest Bank name. So it's been really good to see that. And again, there's personal people who've contributed. So we'll have some family names on storytime and craft areas, and I think it'll just be kind of a nice way to honor those who've invested and celebrate the community collaboration that's made this public library what it will be when we open.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: Are you going to need an increase in staff because of this expansion?
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Of course. When we're adding that much square footage, we'll be looking at adding some headcount that's always an investment for the City of Bettenville. Personnel is our biggest cost to run this building.
We'll work through that with the mayor and other departments as we kind of navigate that. Being open mid year next year will help a little bit with that. We hope to onboard a few newbies next year and then we'll be looking ahead to the next few years too.
So, again, I mentioned that the foundation raised the money for the campaign. We still have a little ways to go as well. About 830,000 left on that $16.75 million price tag, but it's really good to see that upfront. Financial commitment is there. And of course, the operating expense will come as we work through our next two or three years budgets for sure.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: Mike, did you have anything?
[00:14:40] Speaker A: Yeah. One thing, Dave. You asked earlier, and I neglected to mention the impact on our patrons during this project.
Next week, we begin renovating our parking lot. So we're adding about twelve parking spaces and it will be in the meantime, while we're doing the demolition and adding those spaces, it'll be a temporary inconvenience for our patrons, but we'll be closing portions of the parking lot so that the team can get in there and demolition and make room for more parking.
So that's something I think our patrons can expect to be a little bit of a challenge next few weeks as we add more parking to our existing lot.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: Okay, speaking of parking, I know you closed off that north end entrance on Main Street.
Is that ever going to come back or are we sticking with the south end? That configuration going to stay the same.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: The configuration we have now will stay the same. We closed that entry off of Main Street a lot for the safety of patrons walking from the parking lot. Moms with strollers, elderly people, but also the bike path. The downtown trail goes right through our parking lot. So we have a lot of joggers bikers and a lot of the bikers have their kids in tow that cut right in front of our library entrance through our parking lot. So we had a lot of cut through traffic through our lot. Relocating that drive entry has eliminated or not completely eliminated, but significantly decreased the cut through traffic. So it's a safer situation. There's not as much of a vehicle conflict with our pedestrians and bikers, so that's been a positive thing as far as the safety aspect of that.
The portion where the old drive entry is will be a rain garden. We're relocating a rain garden that's currently being planned to demolit. We're going to demolition that for the parking. So there's a little bit of moving around up there on Main Street side to make room for parking, relocate a ring garden, and then that existing drive as it sits now will stay.
Okay, it's a good question.
And that suggestion actually came from a community member during some of our needs assessment, when we asked people about opinions about the library and what do you want to see? Of course, there is always the suggestion for more parking, especially downtown. But that cut through and that safety issue came up during one of our community meetings. And like I said, it's been a positive thing. As far as the safety aspect goes, you're a runner, you know, it's one of those things you really have to pay attention.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
Mike, I'm sorry. Did you have anything that you wanted to ask?
[00:17:54] Speaker C: Yeah, I wanted to ask Hattie about back in the design phase when MSR design was brought on and everyone we talk about the inside of the library and the importance of that. But can you speak to how the outside elements were brought in? Because we have the small veranda now that in the summertime is full of outdoor projects, kids having lunch and things like that. But there seems to be such a great incorporation of outdoor and indoor space with this library with the expansion. But could you talk about the outside element and what programming might be held outside and what might be new with the outside portion?
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Yes. Thank you Mike. That's good. And during our needs assessment study, the importance of nature and outdoor connections was really very vocalized idea with our community members and our stakeholders. So we are expanding our existing veranda and it's a significant expansion of that veranda. And I'm sorry, I don't know the exact square footage, but it will span all of the new addition on that main street side. People can literally walk from the square and just walk right up on the new veranda and come right on in the door. That will lead to the Walmart Foundation community room and the children's department, teen department. So we'll have a secondary entrance and I think that's going to be we're trying to think about designing and using our space for people and humans and what people would want to do, not just funneling people through the same entrance and you have to check out at the same place and all of those things. We're trying to design more for people versus books and materials. But the expanded veranda will be lovely. Lots of casual seating, little bit of kind of picnic type style seating.
We also have what we're calling Stormwater gardens and those will also be what we call Learning gardens where people can learn about the importance of Stormwater and pollution and all those things with Stormwater, very natural native plantings, they'll be pretty to look at but also educational and also server need diverting Stormwater where it needs to go. And then we also have what we call Learning gardens and our bike hub. So the northwest corner I believe will have a little place where people could touch down, park their bike, repair their bike. There's the option for a little coffee cart if our coffee vendor wants to set up out there. So just kind of that come here and you can do things while you're outside. And then we have another courtyard planned as well as what we're calling kind of a gathering space. I've been calling it the East Lawn. So storytime and craft have doors that go outside and so activities can spill from Storytime and Craft to the outdoor lawn.
Again, just that connection in and out.
And then again, our maker space, one of the new high visibility areas, has glass windows on the outside perimeter so people walking or driving down Main Street can see activity happening, and it'll be kind of like a living billboard. That's pretty cool. I want to check that out at the maker space. A lot of high visibility inside and outside, so I think that's pretty cool. Lots of windows. That's what a lot of patrons really liked about our existing library, is all the natural light and the windows. So we just kind of carried that over and made it a little bigger.
That's a really good connection. I mean a really good question.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Is there anything we haven't asked you that you want to touch on Addie?
[00:21:55] Speaker A: That's a good question. I think it's just a matter of if patrons have questions or the community has questions about our project.
We have information on Bettenvillebond.com where they can learn a little bit more. Of course, they can read the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette and read Mike's article coming out. He's always so gracious to cover our know. I'm going to just apologize for that temporary inconvenience up front for the parking lot remodeled. That's going to happen very soon. And then just look growing pain. Yeah just look forward to sharing this building, this space, this amenity with our community. Next summer, after we open the addition, we'll remodel portions of the inside, like, for example, where children's currently is will become a more adult area, as Mike mentioned, with the meeting space and study rooms and lounge. That's kind of one of my favorite spaces right now. Again, it may change next week. I love the yeah, I mean, it's just an exciting time for our community. I think it's been pretty cool to watch the activity happening out on the construction site. Flint Co. Designed us a temporary wall and put in temporary windows so we can continue to see the construction happening. They have poured half of the concrete foundation slab, and we're getting ready to pour the second half of the concrete slab, the foundation very soon. And then patrons can really see the expanse of the footprint of the library. And as they finish that steel will begin being installed. So when the steel goes up, we'll all get to see that visual of the library taking shape. I think that'll be really exciting.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: All right, well, thank you so much again for joining us and filling us in.
Sounds like a lot of exciting things going on there, so I appreciate your time. And Mike too. Thanks for reading a story about the Benville library project this weekend.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you both.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: And while you're checking that out, we have plenty more content to share with you the next few days, and I want to give you a brief preview of that.
In Fayetteville, city Council on Tuesday heard presentations on proposed uses for the city's remaining $1.68 million in American rescue plan money proposals that would address affordable housing. Stacy Ryburn will have that story.
The Lincoln School District converted to a four day work week starting this school year. Education reporter Al Gaspenny talks to some people in the Lincoln District about how that concept has worked out so far.
Northwest Arkansas voters have opportunities this month to get an up close look at how their county's voting equipment works and ask questions of their election officials. Tom system reports.
And from the River Valley, a former photojournalist from Puerto Rico traveled to Fort Smith this week to see one of his photos that is on display at the US. Marshals Museum. Thomas Ascente will bring us details about this photojournalist and the story behind his photo. And Monica Brick attended a public meeting Thursday on proposed improvements to Zero Street and Interstate 540, highway 255 in Fort Smith. Monica will have a report on what she learned there.
And from the lighter side, Thomas Ascente also will report on a new biweekly story series the Fort Smith Police Department is producing on the adventures of Officer Fuzz, featuring the department's police cat.
And are you interested in what's happening Halloween wise this month? Check out this Sunday's. What's up? Where Monica Hooper will provide an extensive list of trunk or treats, haunted houses, pumpkin patches and corn mazes to visit in our area. You'll find that and much more entertainment related content than What's Up?
Don't forget, our always thorough sports coverage will be at Friday's biggest high school football games, including Benville at Fayetteville and Springdale Harbor. At Benville West. And Rick Fires will have columns on Saturday and Sunday. Not to mention we'll have the most complete coverage of the Razorbacks football team's trip to Tuscaloosa to take on the 11th ranked Crimson Tide on Saturday. All this and much more will be available to our subscribers on our tablet and smartphone apps and at our websites, nwaonline.com and Rivervalleddemocratic.com really appreciate you listening to this point and want to thank you for your support of local journalism.
If you're not a subscriber to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette, I hope you'll consider being one. And please welcome you to take advantage of a special offer we have for podcast listeners. Just visit nwaonline.com podcast 23 to get started, or click on the subscribe button on our
[email protected] and River Valleydemocratgazette.com, or just call us at 479-684-5509 we'd love to talk to you know that The News is a weekly podcast brought to you by the Newsrooms of the Northwest arkansas Democratic Gazette and the River Valley Democratic Gazette. Thank you as always, for listening. Again, I'm Dave Perozic, your podcast host this week. Have a great weekend and until next Friday so long.
