Location of the Pleasant Valley Library, Now and in the Future

From time to time, the Building Committee--a group of Pleasant Valley Library Board trustees, representatives of the community, and Friends of the Library--is pressed about the plan to expand the Library in its present location between the Presbyterian Church and St. Stans.  The arguments presented for abandoning this location and moving the Library away from Main Street are

• a plot away from the Churches would permit the Library to have its own parking lot;
• a larger plot would permit the a new Library to be built as a one-story building, saving money over a two-story building that would need an elevator; and 
• the population of Pleasant Valley will move away from its current center in the Pleasant Valley hamlet.

For a discussion of the many reasons why the Building Committee feels that the present location on Main Street is best for the Community, please see the Frequently Asked Questions of the Capital Campaign section of the Library Web site. 

I can only add that the parking situation, while it can be improved (and the Building Committee is looking at ways to do so), is not bad now.  In 14 years of frequent visits to the Library at all hours, I have never failed to find parking either in the lot shared with the Presbyterian Church or on Main Street in front of the Library.  And I know that St. Stans has agreed to allowing Library parking, as has the Pleasant Valley Department Store across Main Street from the Library.  Studies show that expanding the size of a Library does not so much increase the number of visitors as it makes the Library more useful to approximately the same number of visitors.  A new and larger meeting room might bring some additional traffic, but not much more than our existing meeting room that is currently used nearly every evening for community groups. 

Although a one-story Library would helps solve the handicapped access, the loss of our attractive two-story Victorian building on Main Street would contribute to the general loss of ambience for Pleasant Valley that has occurred over the past 30 years.  

Finally, as of now, the long-range plan for Pleasant Valley is to maintain the hamlet as a major center.  Even if there is a successful by-pass of the hamlet, so that Main Street is no longer State Route 44, the hamlet is expected to be the commercial center of the Town.