Prattsburg Free Library

The Prattsburg Free Library is a small library in upstate New York. 

The library owned the building it is currently operating out off, but sold the building to Empire Access. Empire Access needed the portion of the building that the library owned in order to keep their operations in Prattsburgh. The library board of trustees recognized that Empire Access was an important employer in our area, and elected to sell the building to Empire Access. 

The library was on the search for a new permanent home and after finding no suitable properties, the board president reached out to M&T Banks Charitable Foundation about donating the vacated M&T Branch to the Prattsburg Free Library. M&T was open to this, and an agreement was struck, with the M&T ATM continuing to operate at that location.  

The library board and director had a vision of the new library, which included an addition to house a large conference room, something the current location is lacking. Estimates were obtained, but then disaster struck. 2020 saw prices initially drop, but then prices started to rise, and have continued to rise. 

While the library has applied for 3 rounds of construction aid through New York State, the increase in prices and labor cost in the past 4 years has made it impossible for the addition to be included in our initial construction. Due to the increase in prices/labor it is going to take everything the library has, construction aid and matching funds (including the money from the sale of our current building), just to make the existing bank building a functional and safe library.