Deserves Better

Deserves Better
By Dorene M. Lorenz
Seward Phoenix Log
Letters to Editor
February 13, 2003

I am extremely dismayed to discover that the Jesse Lee Advisory Board seems set on turning this historically significant building into a housing project. Three options were recently offered to the public: apartments, condos, or dormitory.

This is a shortsighted and inappropriate use of what should be a public building. With it’s ideal location next to residential neighborhoods and local schools, it begs to be made a place where friends and neighbors join together to explore the legacy of our past and to bring to fruition the hopes we have for our future.

If the building is physically fit to be an apartment complex, it is fit to be an interactive learning libray and museum that greatly enhances the quality of life for all of our citizens. Revamp the stage that is already there and you have a delightful place for a reader’s theater, road shows, one act plays, music recitals and small group meetings. A place to grab a cup of cocoa, talk about the latest mystery novel, and research on the Internet would draw regulars.

By combining an interactive museum with the public library, we can have displays that education and stimulate, storage room for archives and researchers, and greater staff coverage. We would be able to have traveling exhibits and symposiums. A few well-placed meeting rooms and Jesse Lee could help support its own maintenance by hosting small conferences. That year-round income doesn’t hurt the rest of Seward either. Such a venue also brings the perpetual grant money that housing will never find.

Anyone who suggests that it it too far away from downtown and no one would go there, or that moving the museum/library from downtown would somehow diminish the quality of what Fourth Avenue has to offer is being less than progressive in their thinking. Seward is only three miles long, access is not an issue, and Jesse Lee has earned its right to be a focal point in this community.

Seniors have a great transportation network in this city, no doubt the trolley would be happy to follow the same route that school buses do. The lots behind Jesse Lee could be paved and landscaped into an attractive parking lots.

Jesse Lee could be successfully marketed as a destination location for the tourist trade, but the best possible use of this building is to dedicate it to enhancing the quality-of-life of the people of Seward – honoring our past, meeting the needs of our present, and ensuring the strength of our future generations.

This building has been plagued by naysayers since the earthquake. It is a legacy, not just for the people of Seward but for all Alaska. It deserves better than to be dummied down into a housing complex. I beg you to reconsider the proposed use of this remarkable building and under your stewardship give Jesse Lee the opportunity to make as discernible a difference in our future as it has made in our past.