MONTAGUE — Voters gave their blessing for the town to proceed with a debt exclusion to fund its portion of a new $23.7 million library at 38 Avenue A, with 38.72% of Montague’s registered voters casting ballots.
According to the unofficial results released late Wednesday, the debt exclusion passed with a simple majority, receiving 1,593 “yes” votes and 1,248 “no” votes. Of the 2,846 ballots cast, about 56% of voters were in favor compared to 44% against.
The vote allows the town to borrow its $12.4 million share of the total project cost, with $11.3 million from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners funding the rest.
“I’m just so, so excited,” Montague Public Libraries Director Caitlin Kelley said Thursday about the vote. “I felt cautiously optimistic through the last few weeks, but I didn’t dare let myself believe truly that we’d be able to move forward until we got the results last night.”
Polls were open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, with the largest voter turnout coming from Precinct 1 at 50.37% turnout. Only two of Montague’s six precincts — Precinct 2 and Precinct 3 — had more “no” votes than “yes” votes on the single ballot question.
This affirmative vote allows the town to temporarily raise property taxes above the levy limit for the life of the bond, which could be 20 to 30 years. Fundraising and additional grant opportunities will be explored to offset costs to taxpayers, Kelley confirmed in a post on the Montague Public Libraries Facebook page on Thursday morning.
The proposal is for the construction of a 21,000-square-foot, two-story building at 38 Avenue A, which is still in the design phase and will take 10 months to complete. In early 2025, the town secured a $100,000 grant for the project’s design and planning phase. The remaining $150,000 was allocated by Town Meeting voters in May 2024.
For the average taxpayer, using fiscal year 2026 data for the average single-family home in Montague valued at $325,000, the debt exclusion would add an extra $159 per year to a resident’s tax bill, Town Accountant Angelica Desroches confirmed Thursday. Citing figures from Desroches, Kelley said this tax impact could be reduced to $64 per year as debts from two other debt-exclusion projects — the Turners Falls High School and Montague Public Safety Complex — come off the books.
Before planning for a new library began, the former Cumberland Farms property was once slated to house a four-story mixed-use structure proposed by New England Wound Care Medical Director Sohail Waien in February 2020. The pandemic then delayed demolition of the existing structure, as well as construction of the new building.
Later, the project was reduced to a two-story building for financial reasons before falling through altogether by May 2022. After a fruitless request for proposals, the Montague Economic Development and Industrial Corp. recommended the old building be demolished.
Since 2022, there have been surveys, public meetings and other outreach efforts to bring the community up to speed on the project details, including a series of presentations in the summer of 2025 from Downes Construction and architectural firm Schwartz/Silver.
In August 2025, the library trustees and the Library Building Steering Committee both agreed to move forward with building a new library at 38 Avenue A. A new building there was one of two options considered, with the other option being to renovate the existing Carnegie Public Library. Accessibility, a design that complements the surrounding downtown and community space were some of the main areas of focus for this project.
“Our program is really in the business of supporting communities in building functional and flexible public libraries that can serve those communities well for the next 30 years,” Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners’ Library Building Specialist Heather Backman, who has been working with the Montague Public Libraries since early 2025, said about the new building project being approved. “We’re always thrilled for communities that decide they want to move forward with that project.”
According to the designs available on the Montague Public Libraries website, the ground level of the new library will be an 11,092-square-foot space with the adult book collection, local history room, a reading room and private study spaces. On the second floor, the 9,687-square-foot space will include the community room, teen room, an art gallery and a rooftop terrace on the Second Street side of the building.
Backman explained that the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners will continue to work with the town on the ongoing design phase, with check-ins and reviews of the plans. As for the grant money, Backman confirmed that the $11.3 million for the new building is secured, as the money was allocated in a fall 2024 economic development bond bill that approved $150 million for the MBLC to fund these projects.
Kelley explained that the goal is to “hit the ground running” to move the project forward, with goals to set up a fundraising committee to begin looking at cost-reduction options, along with continuing to work with the owner’s project manager and architects on design work over the next 10 months. In that time, a public information session to update residents on the project will be scheduled.
In reflecting on the vote, Kelley emphasized that she thinks the vote margin wouldn’t have been what it was without volunteers keeping residents informed about the project.
“It was really such a beautiful collective effort that got us here,” she said, “and I don’t think any single person can take credit for this project moving forward, but I think the effort of many is going to mean that we have a really beautiful resource that generations of folks in Montague will get to enjoy.”
One such volunteer, Turners Falls resident Maggie Sadoway, spoke to her perspective on this generational impact.
“I’m hoping that a good number of folks who think cellphones and the internet have made libraries obsolete, or folks who haven’t gone to a library in a very long time, will feel welcome at this new one,” Sadoway said. “I also hope they will gradually be able to see how much a modern library brings to a town.”
