A milestone for the greater Lewes community
Partnerships, collaboration, cooperation are all productive uses of energy in a community. With time and effort they lead to accomplishment. But it’s not just the accomplishment that makes these efforts worthy. Partnerships, collaboration and cooperation - by definition - bring people together in productive ways, blending their skills, adding knowledge to knowledge, further cementing the bonds among them.
This week more than a hundred people gathered beside the railroad tracks in Lewes.
Next to a line of scrub woods and in front of a people- and pet-worn path leading to an open meadow, they collectively broke ground for a new facility where people will come together and work cooperatively and productively for the next several decades.
A single-minded partnership, with dozens of players, has been working steadily over many years to acquire land, design a proper building and gather the financial resources to bring this vision to reality. The partnership includes Lewes Public Library, Delaware’s Division of Libraries, Delaware’s Departments of Transportation, and Natural Resources and Environmental Control, the Mayor and Council of Lewes, Lewes Board of Public Works, members of Delaware’s General Assembly, the Greater Lewes Foundation, and several other foundations, service groups, businesses and private individuals who have donated and pledged millions of dollars, time and expertise.
At nearly $11 million, and another million for the adjacent trailhead and restroom facility, this is a large project with many moving parts. At 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 18, in the upstairs meeting room of the existing library, architect Brad Hastings of the Becker Morgan Group and Dean Johnson of the Richard Y. Johnson Construction Management firm will detail the design and construction process for a 21st century facility.
Keeping in mind the library’s smallest patrons who gather for story hour and its most senior patrons who come for meetings, books, films, books on tape and a wide variety of programs, the building is designed without a single step to obstruct access to all that is offered for our multi-generational community. The public is invited to hear an hour-long presentation.
Together, the community is getting it done.
