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04/12/2017 08:00 AMAfter a decisive referendum victory, the E.C. Scranton Memorial Library is ready to get down to the business of renovation. At the Board of Selectmen (BOS) meeting on April 10, the board approved a public-private cooperation agreement between the town and the library and established an Ad-Hoc Library Expansion Building Committee, formally kicking off a multi-year renovation project.
The current renovation plan for the library is a scaled-down version of the plan that Madison voters narrowly defeated in a 2008 referendum vote. Current designs for the building work to preserve the historical architecture while improving the streetscape and expanding the floor plan. The square footage of the building will jump from 17,000 to 37,000 and add a 45-space parking lot.
The project to renovate the library has been estimated at $15 million, but thanks to substantial grants and fundraising efforts totaling now more than $4.7 million, the library asked the town to bond for $9.1 million. At referendum on Feb. 7, voters approved the bonding total with 1,897 “Yes” votes to 550 “No” votes.
The Building Committee is comprised of seven members: Library Director Beth Crowley, Library Board of Trustees Vice President Henry Griggs, Billy Budd, Curtis Graham, George Noewatne, Jr., Mark D. Rolfe, and Woodie Weiss. The committee is charged with seeing the project through to completion, including managing tasks such as the creation of construction bid packages, verifying all permits for construction, and authorizing the release of funds.
Library Board of Trustees President Beth Coyne helped conduct interviews for the committee along with Selectman Scott Murphy and First Selectman Tom Banisch. She said the next step for the committee is to appoint a chair and sign a contract with LLB Architects, with which the library had already been working with prior to referendum.
As planning—and eventual construction—gets underway, Coyne said the library is still focused on fundraising. The library has pledged to raise $6 million of the total cost of the project. With about $4.7 in the bank, Coyne said they are looking a private donations as well as grants.
“We are looking for another $1.3 million, which is a huge amount of money given how far we have come,” she said. “I feel really ambitious and there is a great group of people who are working on this. We have had some recent substantial gifts.”
Coyne said the library has recently applied for another grant and has reached out to those individuals who pledged to donate in 2008, but failed to do so after the project was voted down at the polls.
“We kept track of those pledges and as we reached out to those people, one of those people who promised $100,000 is fulfilling that now,” she said.
The library currently has about $800,000 in the millennium fund from the first referendum that it has invested over the years. Some of those donations came with naming rights, which Coyne said the library is honoring now.
“Some have given more this time around to have a bigger naming opportunity,” she said.
For now it is time for the building committee to get to work and the library to keep its eye on the ball.
“If we can just keep it on budget and on time, that is our goal,” she said.