New community center at Lions Park to link library, child care services and more

Mar. 14—Space must be used strategically in the College Place Library, so branch manager Jen Stutesman gets creative.

The Walla Walla County Rural Library District branch has three desktop computers, but patrons can set up anywhere with their personal devices and connect to the Wi-Fi.

An open space in the children's area is furnished with a rug, where kids read and play, and benches, where parents socialize. One display has to be moved to fit more seating for storytime and other programs.

Chairs and tables throughout the branch are on wheels and easily rearranged for book clubs and other events. A multipurpose room serves as an office for library staff, a meeting room for community members and a storage space.

The setup works — but Stutesman is full of ideas for how the library could benefit from a larger space.

A plan for a larger, permanent library is in progress, as was promised when College Place joined the rural library district in 2019.

The College Place Library will join many other services — including a community meeting space, commercial kitchen and preschool program — in the new Lions Park Community Center.

The project addresses several community needs and will replace the outdated Lions Club currently located at the park on Southeast Larch Avenue, according to College Place City Administrator Mike Rizzitiello.

Tentative timeline

Renovations to the park begin this month and are expected to be complete in 2025. Look for more coverage in the March 16 Weekender edition of the Union-Bulletin.

In summer 2025, the Lions Club building will be demolished, sidewalks will be installed along Southeast Eighth Street and rapid flashing beacons added to crossings at Larch Avenue.

Construction of the new community center will stretch into 2026.

The $10.1 million project includes the design of the new building, demolition of the Lions Club, which was built by volunteers in the 1960s, construction of the new community center and furnishings.

The project is in the works alongside upgrades to Lions Park and a sidewalk project to improve access to the park.

Addressing needs

The current College Place Library is cramped, and the number of visitors has increased during the past couple of years, said Ana Romero, executive director of the Walla Walla County Rural Library District.

"Based on College Place's projected population growth, we were looking for a space that will be able to accommodate the demand in foot traffic," Romero said.

Preliminary designs show the library on the upper floor of the new community center with a dedicated room for programming. The space will be triple the square footage of the current branch, Romero said.

"We're mainly improving the footprint, increasing it, as well as providing more study spaces, quiet rooms and actual space to be able to deliver programming," she said.

The first floor of the building will have two preschool classrooms, a community room, commercial kitchen and storage space.

Rizzitiello said employers in the Walla Walla Valley have pointed to a lack of child care as an issue affecting working families in the area.

The preschool space will dovetail with the city's summer programming for kids, Rizzitiello said, offering child care during the school year.

Community-minded Enterprises, a Spokane-based nonprofit, will contract with a provider for the child care services, Rizzitiello said.

The commercial kitchen was incorporated to meet a request by farmer's market vendors to have a local space to make their goods.

"Our farmer's market is held in that park, and especially as it's grown, a number of the vendors have complained about the fact that if they want to make their own food, the nearest commercial kitchen that they can book time at is all the way out of Blue Mountain Station in Dayton," Rizzitiello said.

Romero said combining all these services is a responsible move from the planning and funding perspective, but she said she's also excited to have so many community assets in one place.

"We're just surrounded by a huge, large green space," she said. "It's almost like we're going to have a captive audience, and that can only be a benefit to both of us in terms of usage of the building."

Stutesman, College Place Library's branch manager, sees potential in the new space. She envisions a Lego area and a physical space for sensory activities led by the leader of the Bookmobile, the library's outreach arm.

"And the idea that there could be child care in the same building? That seems natural to me," she said.

Funding

Rizzitiello said layering the library, child care and community center projects comes with another benefit: It makes it attractive to state and federal funding partners.

In the year since the project was proposed, the city has obtained about half of the funds needed.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-WA, awarded about $2.5 million of Congressionally Directed Spending to the project, Rizzitiello said. The project qualifies for rural development funds, and the city put in another request for 2025 appropriations.

Another $2.5 million was recently included in the state's supplemental capital budget.

The rural library district will apply for the Washington State Department of Commerce's Library Capital Improvement Program to fund the library construction up to $2 million.

"That's what we're hoping to be able to contribute to the project because that piece of grant funding would only cover the library piece of the community center," Romero said.

The city will pursue other grants to fund the difference, Rizzitiello said.

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