LITTLE VALLEY — After two years of planning, purchasing, grants and red tape, the demolition of 104 and 106 Rock City St. will begin next week to make way for a new parking lot for the Memorial Library of Little Valley.
Library Director Linda McCubbin said the first step of the demolition process will take place Tuesday, Aug. 7 and involve the removal of asbestos shingles from the the outside of the building at 104 Rock City St. next to the creek.
According to McCubbin, Empire Building Diagnostics, of Depew, will take on the approximate three-hour task and, once the asbestos is removed, a certified asbestos inspector will come and test to make sure it’s all gone. Then, the company will continue with the rest of the demolition on both buildings. When the time comes, J.D. Northrup Construction Inc., of Ellicottville, will level the site and pave the parking lot.
“The way I understand it, they’ll be using a wrecking ball to demolish the buildings,” she said. “They’ll be taking 104 down first, so they can get the dumpster off the street and be able to work from the side of 106. I was told that they’ll be pulling the building toward the empty lot where 104 was standing. When they take it down, the library will be closed.”
McCubbin said the parking lot project has been ongoing since July 2016 when the building owned by John Studley, located at 106 Rock City St., became available. She said the library board approached New York State Senator Catharine Young, R-Olean, for her assistance to obtain money to buy the building and make a parking lot.
“At that time, she was able to give us $50,000,” she said. “We asked for more because we were hoping for enough to purchase, demolish and do the whole project. At least it was enough to buy both buildings.”
According to McCubbin, the board purchased the 106 Rock City St. property in February 2017. Then Joshua Bryant, who owned the building at 104 Rock City St., agreed to sell it, and they bought that property two months later.
The entire project totals about $94,000, McCubbin said, which includes $3,000 for asbestos testing and $17,000 for the removal. In addition to funding from Young’s office, the library asked the Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Library System for about $71,000.
“We applied for a construction grant through the Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Library System (CCLS) to get the funds to tear the buildings down,” she said. “We still haven’t received our check, but it was to come through in July of this year.”
McCubbin noted it was a 25-75 grant, meaning the library had to fund 25 percent of the grant.
“For the library’s 25 percent, we literally had to put up our savings and a CD (certificate of deposit),” she said. “We’ve been very fortunate this year because we collected double what we normally do for our annual fund drive. The community has been so supportive.”
McCubbin said CCLS gets a certain amount of money every year to give grants to the 38 libraries in the system. Once a grant gets approved through their board, then it has to be approved by the state. She said the CCLS construction fund is the same fund that Salamanca Public Library got last year for upgrading their library.
“It takes at least a year to apply for a grant, go through the process and hopefully be approved in the end. We just applied for another construction grant, but we won’t get any results until the end of July next year,” she said. “We estimated that this total project will come to $127,640, but now we have the DOT asking for engineer drawings and a new inspection.”
Up until now, the library has had only four parking spaces on the street since it moved to the current location in 1983, according to McCubbin. She said there are three spaces on Rock City Street and one on Third Street that is for handicapped parking; sometimes a second car can fit in there.
“Once the parking lot is completed, we’re thinking there will be enough square-footage to accommodate 14 vehicles, but there will certainly be room for at least 10,” she said. “The paved parking lot will benefit not only library patrons, but also the village itself. When the library is closed, the community will be able to use the parking lot.”
McCubbin said before the lot can be paved, they will have to get approval from NYSDOT. Although nobody has given her a timeline, she’s thinking the parking lot will be completed by the end of this year. Once it’s paved, they are hoping to have a grand opening with Young in attendance.
“I want to point out that the AMVETS in Little Valley have already spoken up. Once our parking lot is in, they want to dedicate a flagpole there,” she said. “That is an indication about how excited the community is about our new parking lot.”
In addition to its annual building fundraiser, the library continues to raise money for the parking lot project through several other ongoing fundraisers including “Christmas in July,” a “Penny Drive” and its annual “Pecan Sale.” For more information about how to contribute to the fundraising efforts, call the library at 938-6301.
