ORANGE — The town is one step closer to renovating the Wheeler Memorial Library with a vote by the Orange Board of Selectmen to sign the library designer contract and the application for the grant that will help make the work possible.
Johnson Roberts Associates of Somerville is officially the project designer and Library Director Jessica Magelaner got the nod Wednesday night to drive the grant application to the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners in Boston Thursday.
She said the 102-year-old building at 49 East Main St. is unlikely to see any renovation work this year, but Orange residents voted on Dec. 10, 2016, to allow the town to apply for a state grant to fund an expansion. She said she hopes to secure a $5,285,727 grant to offset the renovation’s projected $9,941,365 cost. Magelaner said the rest of the money will be generated through fundraising and borrowing.
The project would be the library’s first significant renovation since it opened in 1914. The operations project manager is Daniel Pallotta.
Magelaner said the renovation would include a new roof and expansion of the building into the back parking lot. What are currently the building’s front and side entrances would become emergency-only exits and a new entrance would be built in the rear of the building. Magelaner said this new entrance would open to a lobby and a community room accommodating 75 to 100 people, depending on furnishings.
The expansion would include a circulation workroom, fiction and nonfiction book stacks, two bathrooms, a room for young adults and a book drop that can accommodate even fragile items and secure them inside the building.
Magelaner said she is most excited about the community room and the children’s room.