The Appleton Public Library opened its doors at its new temporary space, Jan. 8, 2024. PC: Fox 11 Online
APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The Appleton Public Library welcomed visitors to its new, albeit temporary, home on E. College Avenue Monday.
Renovations continue to move forward at the library’s expanding North Oneida Street location, with work scheduled to be complete in early 2025.
Up until late November, the library had been operating out of a temporary space on S. Kensington Drive. However, its end-of-the-year lease was unable to be renewed due to several national tenants moving in.
After evaluating various options for a new temporary site, the Appleton Public Library settled on subleasing the former Habitat ReStore building at 3000 E. College Ave. from the Thompson Center on Lourdes, Appleton’s senior citizen center.
Although the nonprofit group has plans to build a long-term home for its programming there, the Thompson Center has allowed the library to use the facility until construction at its downtown library location concludes.
“We’re very thankful to work with the Thompson Center to have this location, because there aren’t many spaces in Appleton that can fit a library of this size,” said Owen Anderson, the library’s public services supervisor.
We have the whole collection here. All the services that we had at our Kensington location are available here. It is a bit smaller, so there’s a little bit less seating in this location. But we have computers, holds, a children’s play area.
Packing and moving took the library staff about eight weeks, with the Kensington Dr. location closing on Nov. 21.
“A lot of people have been here today, so it’s been really exciting to see people back again using their library,” Anderson said. “There are still some things that we’re tweaking as we see how the community uses the space. We’ll make adjustments as needed.”
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