A re-tooled plan to expand the Jones Library in Amherst, Massachusetts has been going before various committees, about a month before library officials put the project out to bid again. Some hope dropping certain aspects of the project will be enough to get shovels in the ground.
After stalling in the spring, the project meant to expand and modernize the century-old complex in the center of town has been undergoing review.
Under examination are design changes to the initially $46 million project – the product of what those overseeing it have called “value engineering.”
The changes have ranged from “deferring” Goshen stone benches and a children’s courtyard to opting for asphalt instead of synthetic slate shingles for the roof – all on the table after project overseers consulted with architects earlier in the year, following a struggle to solicit bids during the spring.
The initial value engineering also proposed not reinstalling much of the historic millwork in the library after it would be taken down for construction.
An estimate in May indicated around a million dollars could be saved by skipping reinstallation, but according to Board of Trustees President Austin Sarat, that plan had changed recently.
“We had originally thought of taking the historic millwork down, we asked the architect to put it back in and so it will be where it was in the prior design,” Sarat said while answering a question from the public during a Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday.
The proposed changes have been part of a broader effort to decrease the project’s price tag after only getting one general contractor bid in April, which was rejected after it came in about $7 million above what board members hoped for.
In the weeks that followed, the project faced a vote from the town council over whether to recommend proceeding with it, which failed 7-6.
Weathering that, and hoping to have the project go out to bid in September, design changes went before both the town’s Design Review Board and the Planning Board in late July.
“The Planning Board is typically not able to actually reject a site plan,” said Planning Board Chair Doug Marshall during the July 31 meeting. “We make suggestions, we can draw out the process, we can encourage things to be changed, but … in the end, we really can't reject it outright.”
Marshall clarified the board’s role during a July 31st meeting, citing an influx of emails residents had sent regarding the project, with some in support of the library expansion and others calling for the project to be halted.
During public comment, Maria Kopicki of South Amherst called the project “an exercise in futility,” saying changes like the switch from shingles to asphalt were “unacceptable,” and part of broader changes that were a “disservice to the unique and historical nature” of the building.
She also claimed the project lost out on significant tax credits.
“I just want to also point out that the Massachusetts Historic Commission has twice rejected the historic tax credits for this, because the designs that have already gone through and that would still be in place violate five of the ten standards that they have for those tax credits,” Kopicki said. “So, that's about $2 million, that is gone.”
Supporters of the project say delays have only led to ballooning costs – and that further delaying it would only lead to more issues.
Roman Handlen of North Amherst, says the project is as an investment in the town’s youth.
“I think what's being proposed right now is extremely reasonable and still extremely valuable and I think, for me, as a community member, my focus is on making this the best it can be for my future, for kids’ futures, so that we can have this library be sustainable as an institution and continue to exist,” Handlen said.
The Planning Board approved the revised project, subject to conditions like one that would “require the retention of the use of synthetic slate” for the roof.
Marshall noted that in the event asphalt ended up needing to be used, the Board of Trustees must return before the Planning Board.
The roof raised similar concerns with the Design Review Board a week beforehand – which voted to recommend the project keep synthetic slate in its base proposal. The DRB’s recommendations went to the planning board.
One of the next town bodies to examine the revised plan is the Amherst Historical Commission on August 22nd at 6:35 p.m.
