A few months ago, when the Fort Frances Nursery School was looking for a new home after the local public school board voted to proceed with the closure of Alexander MacKenzie, the option that seemed like a perfect fit was to incorporate it with the local library.
Now, another perfect fit appears to be building a new library on the property where that eyesore—old Fort Frances High School—now stands abandoned and derelict.
There isn’t a more perfect site. First and foremost, it’s centrally located. Secondly, there’s enough room to include the Fort Frances Nursery School. In fact, there’s so much room there that the rest of the property can be “green space,” as currently envisioned anyway in the “Re-Inventing Fort Frances” feasibility study.
Talk about killing two birds—or even three—with one stone.
There’s no question the current library, originally built in 1898 and last expanded back in 1967, is now too small to meet current use and demands. As such, since the status quo isn’t a viable option, the other two involve expanding the current site or building a new library elsewhere.
But with visitors to the library already vying for parking spaces with the Fort Frances Clinic, not to mention several churches, and the fact it would have to be closed up to a year during the renovations, it makes more sense to build a new one elsewhere—especially considering the price tag isn’t all that more expensive ($2.49 million versus $3.25 million).
And given old Fort High has got to go anyway (the sooner, the better), the perfect site is available.
The Fort Frances Public Library is a valuable asset to our community, both for current residents and to attract new ones down the road. It needs, and deserves, a new facility to better serve the public—and complement all the other progressive steps the town has made of late to improve the quality of life here.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
