How cool is this? Abandoned Walmart Transformed into Public Library
The city of McAllen, Texas, has taken upcycling to a new level. When Walmart closed in their town, leaving a 124,500 sq. foot space abandoned, they made a visionary leap. Rather than find another big box retailer, they decided to turn the space into a public libary.
As per Beth Buczynski of Shareable.net, “The cavernous space now houses an auditorium, computers lab, classrooms and meeting rooms, and adult and teen reading lounges — not to mention hundreds of thousands of books — earning it the title of the largest single-story library location in the U.S. The best part of this entire transformation story is that following the re-launch of the library, new user registration increased by 23 percent. That means a lot of people were talking, learning, sharing, and supporting their community instead of simply buying a giant box of laundry soap or cheap patio furniture made in China. And that’s what I call upcycling for the win.”
?fedaf9
http://www.ourcollectivegood.com/innovation/abandoned-walmart-transformed-into-public-library/
= new reply since forum marked as read
I'm going to be sharing more and more types of these community cooperative projects (including official co-ops, member and worker-owned) via both Wishadoo.org, which I intend to be the first official member-owned social network co-op, and Our Collective Good over the next month.
I'm collaborating with the National Cooperative Business Association, via Wishadoo, to help raise the profile of such approaches and educate about the possibilities, as well as to use the tools at Wishadoo to act an incubator for various cooperative ideas.
Personally, I feel co-ops and collaboration, less competition, is the way forward.
BTW, Happy International Day of Cooperatives!
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ncba-celebrates-economic-and-social-impact-of-co-ops-with-international-day-of-cooperatives-2012-07-06
I live in Texas as well. Houston area. We've lost a couple of our local Walmarts, thankfully. There are way too many of them, and Target is the draw here. I don't know about McAllen, but Walmart got a bit too big for their britches here, and I'm glad financial difficulties (over the search for "larger facilities"
is doing them in. Some here in Spring are so empty they echo. 
Looking forward to getting to know you.
Would you kindly move to GD?
So sorry.
But I doubt your post will be locked since it has generated so much interest.
Good to know. Will be extra careful from now on.
Thanks, dixiegrrrl
that greedily swallowed smaller businesses en masse. So not all of them are thriving? This former one certainly is! Perhaps it will give other towns with abandoned buildings a new and important function!
A giant recycling project--bravo!!
Cool building!
I chucked when I saw that the cafe in there is called "The Hungry Scholar". 
Great use of the space.