It might be said nonprofit community hospitals and public libraries have a lot in common.
What goes on within their walls deals with histories, the present and the future.
There’s a lot of coming and going at both — checkins and check-outs, admissions and discharges.
Knowledge is the foundation of what goes on inside.
Both rely on the availability of money, earned and philanthropic, to meet the needs of those they serve.
And hospitals and libraries are essential for the well-being of any vibrant community and its residents.
It’s rare, however, the interests of libraries and hospitals are as directly linked as in Fayetteville, where Washington Regional Medical Center owns a piece of land that may prove critical to the long-term future of the Fayetteville Public Library.
So important is the hospital-owned land south of the library, the library’s board recently agreed to dip into reserve for $2 million to buy the former site of Fayetteville City Hospital. That is a significant step in the life of a public library, and a meaningful sum to advance its future.
The hospital is in the process of making a significant decision, too. It acquired the City Hospital property from Fayetteville in a land exchange. The city got right of way for the traffic circle in front of the hospital’s campus on Millsap Road, a project designed to improve access to and from all those medical and office facilities there, and the hospital got clear title.
The land became available as a result of Washington Regional’s decision less than a year later to shutter 100-year-old City Hospital, which had evolved into a nursing home and rehabilitation center. Suddenly, the formerly public property was on the market for private sale. The library isn’t the only party interested in the property next door. Apparently, apartment builders see a great deal of potential there.
Library officials suspect they cannot outbid the private interests. At $2 million, they’ve already committed more than half of the library’s reserve with much of the remainder kept as insurance against catastrophic failures of equipment. They’re trying to sweeten the pot by offering Washington Regional naming rights for a portion or all of the library’s future expansion. The theory goes something like this: If Washington Regional makes a commitment to the community it serves by accepting the library’s purchase ofter, it deserves an enduring benefit at the library to remind area residents of its contribution.
Part of that commitment, as we read the theory, is to prevent land next to the library from being consumed by a seemingly unending appetite for multifamily housing, much of it oriented to University of Arkansas’ students.
Washington Regional is legally committed to give the city, and thus the library, a right of first refusal. The hospital has promoted some hope by its willingness to work with library officials to give them a chance to bid. At the same time, however, hospital spokesmen continue to speak in cold, hard terms such as “fiduciary duty” as though this deal boils down only to dollars and cents. It doesn’t or at least shouldn’t. The 100-year history of this land’s public service begs for a community-oriented solution.
We’re hopeful the people leading Washington Regional see value in their potential role in the expansion of the Fayetteville Public Library.