Valley News – COVER to start new chapter with renovation, used bookstore

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — South Key Street mainstay Protect House Repair service is undergoing a renovation that will carry a thing old, but also new, to downtown White River Junction: a used bookstore.

“There’s no dedicated bookstore below, and there is no community library in downtown White River Junction,” Helen Hong, govt director of the nonprofit household maintenance business, said in a mobile phone interview last week.

The utilised bookstore is one particular part of a renovation venture that involves moving the household restore offices, putting in a new woodshop and developing a solitary place for home repair service do the job. The bookshop and business entrances will deal with South Primary Avenue, making it possible for for effortless accessibility from the sidewalk. Earlier, all those spaces have been principally used for storage.

“It wasn’t addressing this vibrancy,” in downtown White River Junction, Hong stated in an job interview at Deal with on Friday. “It felt like a missed possibility.”

Renovations started off in November, and the new woodshop is in use. The task, which is anticipated to cost all around $100,000, is generally remaining accomplished by staff members and volunteers with elements donated from location corporations. Hong mentioned the goal is to have the bookstore open up by late summer months and the rest of the function accomplished in October. There are also designs in the works to set a mural on the south-struggling with wall of the brick developing.

The constructing is aspect of the White River Junction Historic District and was constructed in 1908. It was a meat packing organization until the 1960s, according to a brochure about the historic district. Prior to Go over moved in in the late 1990s, it was the dwelling of Catamount Brewery. There were a great deal of scaled-down, fairly awkward-sized areas that created it challenging for employees to retailer constructing supplies whilst also working a fast paced retail room.

“It was driving me crazy how the creating was,” explained Jay Mead, COVER’s house maintenance area director, who has a history in architecture.

With the renovation, all the supplies Mead requires will be stored in a single space: “I truly feel so inspired by what we have heading on ideal now.”

The bookstore also will assist free up room in the retail retail store, which mostly sells donated furnishings, household goods and pretty a few books. Keep manager Jamie Loura is very fired up about the shelf area that will be freed up when the guides are moved.

“(We’re) putting them in a room the place they can be appreciated on their very own,” she stated during an interview at the store. “Right now, it’s pretty secondary that people discover that we have textbooks.”

More than the previous couple of a long time, the nonprofit corporation has witnessed a surge in the quantity of guides staying donated. The made use of bookstore will be 23 feet by 17 feet, according to architectural ideas.

“It would raise the inventory by two or 3 instances what we can currently have,” Hong explained in a mobile phone interview.

At the moment, the publications are largely concentrated in a large hallway that connects the entrance portion of the retail retailer to a huge area in the again of the creating where by home furnishings is situated. Loura is not rather confident what will be place there once the books shift.

It will, even so, allow for room for extra donations.

“When that place is offered, there will be much less no’s that we have to say,” she mentioned.

Because Cover announced its options for a employed bookstore, potential volunteers have attained out keen to provide their time, claimed Jeff Dumont, COVER’s local community engagement director.

White River Junction hasn’t had a general public library considering that May perhaps 2001, when Gates Memorial Library, now the household of the Very good Neighbor Health Clinic, was shut. The Primary Street Museum has a reading through space, and the Center for Cartoon Studies has the Schulz Library for its college students. Kishka Gallery features art guides for readers, but there has not been a bookstore in White River Junction due to the fact the Hundredth Monkey, and then its brief-lived follower, anthologie, shut not way too quite a few several years after the Gates Library.

“People are so psyched about it,” Dumont claimed. Throughout a tour, he pointed out a loft house that might be devoted to children’s guides.

Home windows will also be extra to the South Main Avenue facade, producing it seem more like a storefront.

“There will be a ton extra light-weight,” Dumont reported.

PJ Skehan, govt director of the Hartford Space Chamber of Commerce, reported COVER’s renovation matches in very well with all that’s been going on on South Most important Avenue.

In the earlier, persons could possibly not have generally manufactured it down that way, in its place opting for the right-hand turn off Main Road and towards Northern Stage.

There are a plethora of flourishing businesses earlier that flip, Skehan stated, citing Major Fatty’s BBQ, Elixir, River Roost Brewery, Trail Break Faucets + Tacos, White River Growpro and newly open up Putnam’s vine/garden.

“There’s a desire for a made use of bookstore, for guaranteed. How massive of a demand from customers that is, we’ll see,” he claimed throughout a telephone interview. “It kind of belongs in a area like White River Junction. Folks like to stroll close to.”

Liz Sauchelli can be attained at [email protected] or 603-727-3221.