Thompson Township is getting a new library. Geauga County Public Library Trustees voted unanimously March 20 to buy approximately 4.5 acres of land north of the square on state Route 528 for a new library branch.
The board agreed to pay $52,000 — the appraised value — for four parcels that once were home to the old Thompson School building and football field.
The library system plans to build an approximately 6,000- to 8,000-square-foot branch on the site costing between $1.5 million and $3 million, depending on construction costs, Thompson Township Trustee Erwin “Kok” Leffel said earlier this year.
“Plans are not ready because we just signed the contract with the designer. That will be happening soon,” GCPL Director Ed Worso said March 27. “Much more information will be coming.”
Worso anticipated it would take several years to plan, design and build the new Thompson branch.
“So perhaps this will be complete by the holidays 2020,” he said. “Maybe sooner?”
For Thompson Township, Leffel said March 27 the new library branch would continue the revitalization of the Thompson Town Square area, which already has planned the conversion of the former Ledgemont High School into a memory care unit for people with Alzheimer’s disease and an assisted living/senior living facility, and the former Crandall Ford dealership into the new home of Hemly Tool Supply as well as improvements to a four-suite apartment on the square and improvements at Ledge Park.
“The library branch will create a space that is a much needed socialization and educational center for all ages in Thompson,” Leffel said. “I cannot thank the Geauga County Library Board of Trustees and the people of Geauga County for their support in providing this revitalization improvement for Thompson Township.”
Last November, voters passed GCPL’s $24 million bond issue — 11,891 to 11,532 — to provide funding for library upgrades and construction of new branches in Bainbridge Township and Thompson.
The county library established the Thompson Station in the former Ledgemont High School in 1979 to serve the residents of Thompson and Montville townships. When the territorial transfer occurred between Ledgemont and Berkshire school districts several yeas ago, the library station moved to the Ledgemont Elementary building on Burrows Road where it currently remains with limited public service hours.
At their March 7 meeting, Thompson trustees unanimously passed a resolution authorizing the sale of the township-owned property to the library system.
The resolution — which the library board accepted — provides the township with a future easement or access across the property as well as use of the to-be-constructed driveway and parking areas as staging and parking areas for future township-sponsored activities outside of library hours.
It also requires the library branch to feature the “Frances Spatz Leighton Room,” in honor of the former Thompson High School graduate who passed away in 2007 at the age of 87. In her will, Leighton named the township and former Thompson/Ledgemont school district as beneficiaries of her estate, which included cash and property in several states.
Leighton wrote more than 30 books and countless articles on subjects such as the White House chef during the Eisenhower years, Jacqueline Kennedy’s dressmaker and personal secretary, the House of Representatives’ doorkeeper for 42 years and White House dogs.
The northern edge of transferred property will be left whole for the “Thompson Rural School Memory Area” to be constructing this spring.
Finally, the library branch will include a developed green space area, according to the resolution.
The library board picked the former school site over an 8-acre parcel a property owner south of the square on state Route 528 proposed to donate to the library for the branch.
“Casual investigation on the fish and wildlife service national wetlands inventory map indicated several areas of wetlands, which on the surface are not insurmountable obstacles,” Worso told the Geauga County Maple Leaf. “We also had a quick site review by an independent firm, but any building on that site would have required intense investigation that would likely have required the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and all indicators pointed that their involvement could take months or even up to a year.”
Added Worso, “We are on a schedule where we are required to spend 85 percent of the bond money in a window of time that is currently less than three years.”
He also noted the county system began assessing the former school site — which has to have “sewer, water, gas line, electric and fiber optic” — 18 months ago, so “we are familiar with it.”
“And to think when the school transferred, people thought Thompson was going away like other small towns where their school has consolidated,” Leffel said.
