After years of efforts, Cutchogue New Suffolk Free Library has acquired the former church property directly to its east, thanks to the prescience and generosity of someone who was described only as a “devoted library patron for many, many years,” whose donation years ago was earmarked for the library’s future expansion.
“We had a large donation probably seven or eight years ago now, that put us in a position to be able to buy the property without having to increase the tax levy or anything,” library director Rosemary Winters said this week.
She said the neighboring property at 27700 Main Road has been a long-sought target location for a library expansion.
“The library almost bought it from the church a number of times, and it fell through for a variety of reasons, whether the church had decided not to sell it at the time, and so on. And then, most recently, we were looking into it several years ago, and it didn’t seem like the right time as well.
“And now here we are, and the opportunity presented itself, and our board of trustees was in full support of it. Our programs and services that we offer probably spoke the most to our need for it. So it was a great opportunity, and all the stars aligned.”
Ms. Winters said the property contains a gutted church building that will ultimately be renovated, but the library is already taking advantage of the additional green space for some of their children’s programs — including a balloon artist next week — and using a garage in the back of the property for Friends of the Library book sales and storage.
“Anything that we can utilize that property for immediately, we are.”
She said that while there’s not yet a timeline set, the library’s next step will be to hire an architect to help formulate plans, followed by a capital campaign, and acknowledged that it will be “years down the road” before the project is fully financed and completed.
Ms. Winters said space has long been the library’s biggest challenge.
“That’s the most important thing, whether it be large-scale concerts that we host or anything else. We stuff everybody into the library to the best of our abilities, but we really want to have adequate space to be able to continuously offer these items.”
As soon as the architectural plans are drawn up, according to Ms. Winters, “we’re going to keep everything very, very open to the public, so it’ll be right on our website, and we’ll have projected costs. And then what we’ll want to do is make sure everybody can see the rate at which we’re raising money, so they can see how the plans develop.”
She said she wouldn’t have a projected cost for the plans until an architectural firm is brought on board.
“It’s so exciting, not just for me and our board, but our whole staff. We’ve all been eyeing it for a very long time … So for it to finally come together was really exciting for all of us. Everybody is looking forward to the future and the opportunity.”