Amy Sanders wouldn't mind if someone else's name is on Sherwood's new library instead of hers again, she said Wednesday.
The $5.8 million Amy Sanders Library, to be on 14 acres at 10200 Johnson Drive, is planned to be complete within 10 months. It will replace the existing Amy Sanders Library, opened in 1989 at 31 Shelby Road, the oldest branch in the Central Arkansas Library System.
Sherwood voters approved a 1.3-mill property tax in November 2014 to support a $6 million bond issue to build a more modern library with much more space and much more parking. A mill is one-10th of a cent.
The new library was always intended to continue to honor Sanders, 92, a former Sherwood city clerk who had also helped the city incorporate in 1948. Sanders, though, said she told library and city officials that she would understand if someone else's name would be on the new building.
"I thought, I had that honor for 29 years," Sanders said before a library groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday. "I would have been fine if they wanted to give it to someone else. They didn't want to do that. It certainly has been a pleasure to have it. I'm so privileged to be here at 92 years of age.
"A lot of people think I'm dead," she said. "Usually buildings are named for people who have died."
The age of the existing Sanders Library prevents it from expanding its Internet service and computer space. Adult and children's programs must be separate because of the lack of meeting space -- which keeps parents and their children mostly apart -- within the 8,500-square-foot library. Also, the building is located within a city complex, so it shares parking and traffic access with other buildings, leaving the library without adequate parking.
The new Sanders Library will be 14,244 square feet, with ample parking. Across Johnson Drive from Sylvan Hills Middle School, the library will be more convenient to a host of students.
"I think it's already generated a lot of excitement," Sherwood Mayor Virginia Young said of the new library. "The current library doesn't provide all the technological needs for its patrons. This is going to be more conducive to what the technological needs are for libraries."
Nate Coulter, Central Arkansas Library System executive director, said the new library will take advantage of its outdoor space as well, with the prospect for walking trails and outdoor instructional programs.
"It will be state of the art," Coulter said of the new library. "It'll have all kinds of access to the Internet, access to Wi-Fi. Having space is key. People still read, but they're not necessarily reading books as much."
Sanders said she is happy that her city invested in its future with the much-needed new library, even if it had been under a different name.
"It will be great," Sanders said. "This will be something the people of Sherwood will be proud of for years and years to come."
Metro on 01/26/2017