Point Reyes Light - December 9, 1999
New Stinson Library to open Sunday
Stinson Beach's new library will celebrate its grand opening from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12, with the ribbon cutting set for 1:15 p.m.
The opening marks the end of the new library's metamorphosis from a village eyesore into a source of community pride. Particularly amazing is the fact that the Bolinas-Stinson Beach Library Association raised a whopping $360,000 for the project plus another $30,000 to upgrade Bolinas Library.
Built as a 7-11 in the early 1960's, the Stinson Library's new building was originally leased to Southland Corporation of Texas, who found the mini-market business unprofitable.
Last week real estate agent Al Engel, one of the project's Good Samaritans, said the 7-11 suffered from "poor management and lack of business."
Two years ago, Engel purchased the property and paid for renovations to the building's exterior.
Kendrick Rand, fire chief of Stinson Beach, recalls that the 7-11 had several different managers. "They [Southland Corporation] sold a bill of goods" to some unwitting people who attempted to run the store. Although "business was better in the summer," it still never took off, he said. When the 7-11 closed down, the building stayed vacant "maybe 10 to 15 years," said Engel. Sometime before 1980 the property was sold to a San Francisco real estate agent, Richard Klein.
Klein had hopes that 7-11 would reoccupy the building, but his plans never materialized. Last week he described the venture as "filled with frustration and not the most successful thing I've been involved with."
It was an "embarrassment" to Klein that Southland refused to maintain the property, and eventually he got the corporation to terminate their lease, he said.
After that Klein sold the building to K-N Properties of Half Moon Bay. Eventually, Engel and William Hanlon bought the property from K-N. [K-N did not return phone calls for this story.]
Clint Graves, a Stinson Beach photographer, recalls that the Chevron Gas station which occupied the lot immediately adjacent to the old 7-11 was also sold by its owner Proctor Jones to K-N Properties at the same time. Graves recalls that K-N may have had plans for a food mart/gas station complex. They "bulldozed the property and put in high tech gas pumps," he said.
Engel also believes that K-N had plans for a "big sign and maybe even a beer and wine license." However, the plans met with community resistance, and K-N eventually sold the gas station property back to Jones, claiming that before the sale Jones was aware soil at the site had been contaminated.
Before Jones sold the station to K-N, he "had the soil taken out and he aerated the soil," Engel explained. He also remembered that Jones had removed a leaking septic tank, which had been used to hold discarded fuel oil.
In any case, K-N Properties did not have an easy time of it in Stinson Beach. Engel said the company never sought the approval of townspeople before tearing down the neighboring gas station, hoping to combine a new station and a mini-mart.
Klein added that Jones too "created a bad atmosphere" for K-N and that "the community was not very helpful."
After K-N drafted more elaborate plans for a gas station/mini-mart and they failed too, K-N in 1990 rented the old 7-11 building to a French auto mechanic, Denis Pawlick. However, after a few years the shop burned down, with some townspeople claiming the origin of the fire was suspicious.
Engel says the old 7-11 with a hole in its roof lay vacant again "until K-N decided what to do with it." Ultimately, the firm sold the property to Engel and Hanlon.
Meanwhile the neighboring lot where the gas station once stood became an eyesore surrounded by chainlink fencing. It is still owned by the estate of Proctor Jones.
Engel said he has no plans to purchase that property, adding that he "sacrificed my retirement" for the library property.
His hope is that someone else will purchase the old gas station site and noted some negotiations regarding the property are underway. The real estate agent would like to see the now-vacant lot turned into a "quiet senior park" which could "become an adjunct of the library" where people can read and "maybe play a little bocce ball."
Whatever becomes of the gas station lot, everyone is delighted that the 7-11 "eyesore right in the center of town" has been transformed into a new library, noted Fire Chief Rand. Although it began as 7-11, he added, "libraries come in all shapes and sizes, and it looks like a library to me."