Soap Lake Public Library facelift incoming

SOAP LAKE — Soap Lake residents are being invited to discuss their ideas for remodeling the Soap Lake Public Library at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Soap Lake Community and Senior Center, 121 Second Ave. SE. 

Residents will have other chances to give their opinions if they can’t make the meeting, including at the Soap Lake Post Office, 511 Division St. N, said Soap Lake branch librarian Caleb Hermans.

“We’ll be at the post office all day, talking to people about it,” Hermans said. 

The community meeting will include a short presentation on some of the design possibilities by a specialist from Libraries Forward, which is working with NCW LIbraries on the project. After the presentation people will have a chance to evaluate some of the design options and provide their opinions on what they’d like to see at the library. 

There’s also a survey available online at the NCW Libraries website, https://bit.ly/NCWLIB1, where people can give their ideas. 

Paper copies of the survey are available at the library, 32 E. Main St., in English, Spanish, Russian and Ukrainian. 

Hermans said the design is a work in progress as of now. Options include new paint and flooring, new bookshelves, new furniture and a redesigned floor plan.

“We can’t know at this point what can be done,” he said. 

The remodeling project is for the interior only.

“As an organization, we’re more responsible for the inside,” Hermans said. 

All but one of the district’s libraries are owned by community groups or municipalities; the Soap Lake facility is owned by the city. The Soap Lake City Council approved an agreement with NCW Libraries for building upgrades at the regular meeting Dec. 6. 

Soap Lake Mayor Alan DePuy said the NCW Libraries administrators had expressed concerns about the building’s heating-cooling systems and the parking lot. Council member John Carlson asked how the repairs would impact the city’s finances. 

“We’re liable as the city,” DePuy said. “That’s our building, so we’re liable for that upkeep. So we’re going to have to address it somehow.”

There are some options city officials are looking at, DePuy said.

Council member Kayleen Bryson said city officials have a preferred color palette and she wanted to make sure any improvements harmonized with that color scheme. Bryson also said it was important to keep the building’s existing look.

“At one time, somebody wanted to paint it. And there was some blowback about that because it’s the original color of the brick and we didn’t want to paint it,” Bryson said. “I would just like to work with them to ensure that our color palette in the exterior and interior could work together.”

In 2021 library officials announced a $10 million improvement plan that included about $7.5 million to upgrade 29 of the system’s 30 libraries. Soap Lake is part of the first phase of that plan, along with the Ephrata and Royal City libraries. 

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.