Library foundation launches campaign for new East Helena branch

The Lewis and Clark Library Foundation launched a capital campaign to help pay for a new East Helena branch, moving an $8 million project closer to construction near John F. Kennedy Memorial Park.

Library director John Finn said the project already has a site and initial designs, and the focus now is raising the rest of the money needed to build it. So far, about $3 million has been identified, including roughly $1 million from library savings and a potential $2 million loan through the Montana Board of Investments. That leaves about $5 million still to raise through grants and the foundation campaign.

The proposed branch would replace the current East Helena library at 16 E. Main Street, a 2,500-square-foot building that library documents say serves an average of about 1,200 users each month. The new facility is planned at 11,000 square feet, a size increase that library leaders say is needed as East Helena keeps growing. The branch opened in 2002 inside East Helena Middle School and moved to its current downtown location in June 2010.

Branch manager Andrea Eckerson said the current space no longer fits the way people use the library. The community room is too small for some of the programming now offered, and story times have outgrown the building. The new branch is being framed not just as a place for books, but as a larger civic space for meetings, programs, technology access and family use.

The site chosen sits adjacent to the trail system and the municipal pool in JFK Memorial Park, one of the city’s three prominent parks. Library documents say a citizen and staff committee began looking for a new location in 2023, and a feasibility study already examined flood plain, utility and conceptual planning issues. A library memo said staff were scheduled to meet with Mosaic Architecture on April 14, 2025, to review the study and program space needs, and a 2026 board packet said staff and architects toured six libraries in the Portland, Oregon, area for design ideas.

The project has also advanced through local approvals. In early 2025, the East Helena City Council allowed survey work, and in summer 2025 the council unanimously moved forward with plans for the new branch in JFK Memorial Park. Mayor Kelly Harris said gathering places and access to services matter in a growing community, underscoring the library’s role as part of East Helena’s broader public infrastructure.