By Tim Hundt
VIROQUA, Wis. — The Viroqua Park and Recreation Committee has cleared the way for McIntosh Memorial Library to turn the city’s old outdoor pool pump house into a home for a new garden tool lending program, a project library leaders say grew from years of planning for a broader library of things and a push to help residents grow more food at home.
Committee members voted this month to let the library use the former pool filter house beside the community gardens on Rock Avenue as a garden tool shed, after hearing details from library staff about a program that will loan shovels, rakes and other equipment to cardholders during the growing season.
Park and rec officials framed the move as a practical way to put an underused city building back to work while advancing community goals around recreation and green space.
“The library is flexible and we have no use for that space in parks and rec right now,” said Parks and Recreation Director Kale Proksch. “My recommendation would be to let the library use that space unless a future project in our outdoor rec plan needs it.”
The vote followed months of conversation between city staff and the library about how to support new kinds of lending programs, including sports gear and tools, as part of a library of things model that first surfaced in a comprehensive outdoor recreation plan discussion last fall.
Library staff told committee members the pump house is central to a plan to launch a garden tool library this spring in partnership with local nonprofits.
“With the garden shed we plan to renovate it into a space to become a garden tool library,” said Youth Services Director Emilia Jury. “We are working with Caleb DeWitt with Harmony AgCelerate and the Nelson Ag Center to acquire tools and that process is already underway.”
Jury said the library and partners have already ordered more than 60 tools from Nelson Agri-Center that will be stored in the renovated pump house and checked out to patrons who sign safety and liability waivers. The library will include a total of about 70 tools overall. The program is expected to run March through October, timed to the local growing season.
“We are planning to launch this garden tool shed on a Saturday in March (March 14) with a big seed community giveaway to help our community start to meet the motto of growing together,” Jury said. “People will get to use these items from the garden tool shed to cultivate their gardens at home and really transform our community into a positive green space.”
Committee members questioned whether the old pump house would need extensive work before it could safely hold heavy tools. Jury told them early inspections suggest the structure is sound with only modest interior changes planned to make it functional for lending.
“From our experience with the shed so far it seems to be mostly up to code,” Jury said. “We would have an inspector take a look and we are planning to put pegboard along the walls to store the tools.”
Some committee members wondered whether tourism or the local chamber might need the space in the future but staff said those groups had been consulted and did not see a use for the building now.
“We reached out to the chamber with Trina and they told us they did not see a need for that space at this time,” Proksch said.
To address concerns about locking the building in permanently City Administrator Nate Torres urged a flexible agreement. The committee amended its motion so the library can use the building indefinitely until parks and rec or another city need arises instead of forcing library staff to return every year for renewal.
“Originally this was being looked at as a year-to-year commitment,” Torres said. “It makes more sense to let the library use it until parks and rec notifies them that we need the building for something else instead of bringing it back every single year.”
Committee member Seth McClurg captured that balance in an amended motion that passed on a voice vote.
“I would like to amend that motion to have that use on an indefinite timeline unless parks and rec or other city entities see another need for it,” McClurg said.
The garden tool library grows out of a broader strategy at McIntosh Memorial to loan nontraditional items as part of what leaders describe as a library of things. That vision surfaced last year as the city updated its outdoor recreation plan and weighed partnerships to expand access to sports and recreation gear.
“In the strategic plan that the Library Board adopted this summer, it is clear that we are going to be establishing a library of things in relation to a garden tool library,” Library Director Trina Erickson told the committee during an earlier meeting. “A library of things can absolutely include items like pickleball equipment or sleds and skates and it can be whatever we have the capacity to house.”
Erickson said the library board has already committed to that direction and staff are now working with parks and rec to decide which items will best serve residents and fit within limited storage.
“We are just having the conversation with Kale to get serious about what type of equipment would be best served through some type of library of things,” Erickson said.
The new program also fits into the city’s comprehensive outdoor recreation plan, which calls for more partnerships between parks in the library and local nonprofits to expand low cost access to recreation and green space.
As the seed giveaway and first lending season approach, Jury told committee members that the library views the pump house arrangement as a shared experiment. Staff are willing to move if a future park project demands it, she said, but hopes the garden shed will become a long running piece of the community garden landscape.
“The library is flexible should the Welcome Center or parks and rec find another use for this building,” Jury said. “For now we see the tool shed as a way to help people grow food and flowers at home and to help our community live up to that growing together motto.”
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