There are two important dollar figures to consider when thinking about repairs or renovations to the Carnegie Library: $100,000, and 30% of the value of the building value. The 2025 building value is listed as $1,823,400, so the second figure comes to $547,020. What happens at each of these figures?
Adding an accessible bathroom will easily exceed the first figure of $100,000. Per Mass General Law 521 this will require that other accessibility improvements be made to the work area. We have a ramp, but the desk and shelves don’t meet ADA code. To bring the main stack area up to code we will have to remove two of the six shelf units and cut 14 inches off the ends of the others to get adequate 42-inch aisle space. We can’t use the two top shelves or the bottom shelf. Applying the same allowable reach limit of 18 to 54 inches high to the rest of the shelves we end up eliminating up to 65% of our shelf space.
The scope of work will include asbestos abatement, lead paint remediation, plumbing and electrical upgrades, new flooring, and a contingency to cover other work that will be discovered when we open up walls in the 120-year-old building. A low cost estimate is $350,000 but it could easily be more. We will be without a main branch for the duration of construction.
Capital expenditures have to pass the scrutiny of the Finance Committee, the Capital Improvement Committee, the Selectboard and finally a Town Meeting vote. As anyone who has ever participated in this process knows, each of those groups weighs the cost of the project against the benefit. Will they conclude that it is reasonable to spend $350,000 to gain an accessible bathroom but lose 65% of our books?
If we spend more than the 30% limit of $547,020 in any 3-year period the law requires that the entire building be brought up to code. This would make proactively adding an accessible toilet a big gamble. The roof needs to be redone, the HVAC system is at the end of its life, and the basement floods in heavy rain. Repairs to the masonry and windows have been put off, and there’s only one sprinkler in the building. Even a careful plan of spaced out repairs will fall apart with an unplanned system failure.
Bringing the entire building up to code requires an elevator to the basement and second floor. Preservation restrictions dictate that the front and sides of the building exterior can’t be altered, so the only place to put an elevator addition is in the 12-foot-wide driveway at the back. The cost for this is in the millions and the construction will close the building for a year or more. If ledge makes it impossible to get the elevator to the basement those office will have to move upstairs. If the town doesn’t choose to spend millions of dollars just to gain an elevator, an accessible restroom, and access to the 2nd floor program space the building will close permanently.
The Carnegie building has served the town for 120 years but it just isn’t big enough to provide even the basic services that people want from their library. Even $4 or $5 million is not going to add the book capacity, study rooms, children’s space, computer stations, or any of the other things that current library users and people who would like to be able to use the library have asked for. A new owner may not have the same space constrictions, and may have access to funding sources not available to a public library.
We have an opportunity to bring $11.3 million in tax dollars back to Montague and build a library that can serve the community for the next 50 to 100 years. The grant program makes it very clear that this money goes to some other town if we don’t use it for this purpose now. The town’s share of the project amounts to a cost of 52 cents on the dollar. Any other plan that someone else may come up with in the future will be paid for 100% by Montague taxpayers.
We need to invest in our future, not the past. Please join me in voting “yes” on June 24 for a new Montague library.
Tricia Perham of Montague is co-chair of the Library Building Steering Committee, a library trustee, and Town Meeting member with 35 years in the construction industry.