SALISBURY — For a long time, administrators at the Rowan Public Library have ached over a gap in their coverage area: West Rowan County.

“In West Rowan, we have about 11,000 people and one of the most populous townships — no library there,” said Jeff Hall, library director.

But the closure of the old Cleveland Elementary School building provides an opportunity. Come December, the century-old building will be emptied as students move a few hundred yards away to a brand new, combined elementary school.

The Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education has batted around the idea of demolishing the old building, but on Monday, Hall came to the board with a proposition: turn the school’s media center into a library.

The media center is an addition built in about 2000 and is removed enough from the main structure. It can be saved should the rest of the school be demolished. It even has its own heating and air conditioning system.

“We’re basically only serving the people in West Rowan through a very small facility,” he said of the library’s current presence.

The building is barely 100 square feet and sits near Cleveland Town Hall. There’s no room for a staff, so the library operates on an honor system.

“So you check it out, write your name down, bring it back when you can — nothing else,” Hall said.

During the summer months, the library runs programming out of Town Hall. In 2017, Hall said, more than 300 children attended over the course of a seven-week program. The need, he said, is there.

“We see that it could expand. We see that we could have a much larger stake in preventing that summer slide,” he said.

The Rowan County Board of Commissioners has already publicly endorsed the proposal, and Hall asked the Board of Education to do the same. When the time comes to move out of Cleveland Elementary, he asked that the media center and the school’s auditorium be turned over to the county for a nominal fee so that they could then become a library.

School board Chairman Josh Wagner said he thinks the plan sounds like a good one.

“I think from a board standpoint, the more of this facility we can reuse, the better,” he said. “… If we can make it a win-win for everybody, we’re happy to do that.”

Hall estimated that he will have to raise about $315,000 to transform the media center and auditorium into useable spaces for the library. But now that he has the endorsement of both boards, he said he can get to work.

The board instructed its attorney, Ken Soo, to work with county attorneys to prepare the paperwork for the property transfer.

In other business Monday, the school board:

• Hired Kelly Shoffner as the new principal of Enochville Elementary School. She is currently serves assistant principal at East Iredell Elementary School. Former Enochville Principal Kelly Street has accepted a district-level position with Rowan-Salisbury Schools.

• Announced that there will be no work session for April. The board will meet next April 23 for its monthly business meeting.

Contact reporter Rebecca Rider at 704-797-4264.