Palatine library closing Freeman Road branch, opening new location
The Palatine Public Library District board of trustees voted Wednesday to permanently close its Freeman Road Branch Library next month.
The board also signed an agreement to open a new branch on Hoffman Estates Park District property, about a mile away from the Freeman Road Branch, that will continue to serve the same area.
Library officials said they were notified in July that the retail center housing the nearly 2,000-square-foot Freeman Road Branch had changed hands in foreclosure proceedings. Last month, trustees voted to extend the branch's lease with the bank that took over the site until Sept. 30 while they considered their options.
In August, park district officials contacted library director Susan Strunk to discuss the possibility of leasing a 1,248-square-foot activity room on the lower level of its Willow Recreation Center, 3600 Lexington Drive, and converting the space into a branch library.
Library officials decided the location would successfully meet their need to provide a branch to residents living in north Hoffman Estates.
“They're taxpayers, so the board was really interested in making sure that insofar as possible we could retain library service in that service area,” Strunk said. “That's why we're really happy to be able to make this agreement with the park district.”
The Freeman Road Branch, which opened about 20 years ago and moved into its current location in 1994, will close at the end of the day on Saturday, Oct. 22.
It will reopen at the new location, which will be named the North Hoffman Branch, in early November.
“We are always open to exploring potential new intergovernmental partnerships and with the Activity Room being an underutilized space within Willow Recreation Center, it turned out to be a win-win situation for both agencies,” Hoffman Estates Park District Executive Director Dean Bostrom said in a news release.
Strunk said the somewhat smaller location will hold most, but not all, of the materials currently found at the Freeman Road Branch.
The library district will lease the space for three years at an annual cost of $31,200, which is approximately $14,000 less per year than the most recent lease and utility costs for the Freeman Road Branch.
Nearly 68,000 visitors went to the Freeman Road Branch Library in the library district's 2009-10 fiscal year, and trustees are hopeful those visitors, along with new guests, will utilize the new branch. Hours for the new location have not yet been determined.