A healthy development

Decision on library site great for Fayetteville

The Fayetteville Public Library since 2004 has been situated between Mountain and Rock streets, but for the last several years, it’s been stuck between the Stones and a hard place.

Thanks to a recent Arkansas Supreme Court decision, the voter-backed plan to almost double the library’s size faces less challenging terrain.

The justices on the court two weeks ago upheld a lower court’s decision that Washington Regional Medical

Center was the legal owner of the former City Hospital on land just south of the library. The library’s board of trustees had offered $2 million for the site, recognizing its value to the future of a library that’s just 12 years old but is nonetheless all booked up — that is, operating beyond its planned capacities.

The library has long been a beloved institution in Fayetteville, but since the opening of the facility known as the Blair Library in 2004, it has taken its place among the most popular public spaces in the city. Its need for expansion was never in question, and voters last August agreed to higher property taxes to generate $26.5 million in public funding for a $49 million expansion.

Whether it would be able to expand to the south, on the land owned by Washington Regional, became a sticking point because Stephen and Amanda Stone had donated the land to the city as a site for a hospital. That was back in 1906 and the land was used as a hospital facility for a hundred years before the facility closed. By then, the local hospital had through a series of events become known as Washington Regional, and that organization operated City Hospital as a rehab facility. A new Washington Regional Medical Center opened in the north part of Fayetteville in 2002. Descendants of the Stones sued, suggesting the donors’ wishes would be thwarted by the proposed sale to the library. So a hundred years after a generous gift for the welfare of city residents, Stephen and Amanda Stone’s ultimate desire would be interpreted by the Supreme Court justices.

Thankfully, due to a clear deed written in 1909, the justices were able to clear the way for the library, a ruling that from our point of view continues, in strong fashion, the Stones’ generosity to the people of Fayetteville. And the $2 million paid to Washington Regional also continues the Stones’ commitment to meeting the health care needs of the city they so clearly loved.

Indeed, one could certainly argue, perhaps more philosophically than legally, the library is good for the health of Fayetteville’s residents. It has informed generations of residents and, through expansion, will continue to be a community facility that expands minds and promotes a sense of well-being.

All these decades later, it seems to us, Stephen and Amanda Stone would be at the top of the list of donors to the expansion of the library if they knew how the city had progressed. Their donation will continue making a big impact for the people of Fayetteville.