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“Right now, we are number-24 on the Library Funding List,” Wood says. “One of the primary things they look at when they fund an application for a state grant is— will this facility house regional library staff?”
The city has had an expansion plan for the current facility for years, but has not been able to proceed for multiple reasons.
“The WGRL staff would have to be in the same building (to gain ground on this grant), so if we expanded our facility where we are now, we would have to build an even larger building that just what we need, in order to accommodate them,” Wood says. “They need a little more space than what our current library plan has. A 10,000 foot addition would probably have to go 15,000.”
Wood says the targeted state-grant cannot be awarded for a new building—only for expansion of a current facility.
But-- should that plan not work out, the city reportedly has more than $750,000 that has been committed for a new library at a new location.
“The market is so good to purchase a piece of property, we’re going to continue to look at vacant buildings that are available that we might be able to pick up at a bargain… re-model some and maybe put the library in that,” Wood concludes.
The Villa Rica Library is the believed to be the busiest branch per square foot of the West Georgia Regional Library System-- serving Carroll, Douglas, Haralson, Heard & Paulding counties.