Anticipating new general contractor bids this week, volunteer members of the Jones Library Capital Campaign committee reiterated the many reasons renovation and expansion plans remain the right choice for our community's living room. Both the Amherst Bulletin and the Daily Hampshire Gazette published this column October 25 and 26,respectively.
Public support is strong for Jones Library renovation and expansion project. Here’s why.
The project remains a singular opportunity to provide the library and community center that area residents want and need. With new bids due at the end of October, we invite everyone to participate by pledging your support.
No other option will:
• Support programs serving thousands of children each year with safe and functional spaces.
• Convert an inefficient, natural gas-guzzling building into a fossil fuel-free, net-zero ready building, helping to meet Amherst’s sustainability goals.
• Bring one of Amherst’s most-used buildings into alignment with modern accessibility standards, and convert it from a confusing rabbit warren of rooms back into “Amherst’s living room” able to welcome the hundreds of thousands of patrons who visit each year.
• Provide dedicated space for teens who rely on the library for safe and welcoming after school space without interfering with other library users.
• Make available computers which are used for tens of thousands of hours each year by those without access to today’s necessary technology.
• Provide distraction-free privacy for the 16,000 hours of ESL tutoring, classes, and conversation circles the library’s award-winning program offers.
• Display the town’s priceless Civil War Tablets and the extraordinary Special Collections holdings of the library in climate-controlled and safe conditions.
• Preserve the historic look and feel of most of the original 1928 building — opening spaces that have not been public for 30 years — while adapting it to serve all of the above needs. for which it was not designed.
• Provide the necessary repair and maintenance overhaul which has not been undertaken for 30 years.
Despite unprecedented inflation, the cost for Amherst’s taxpayers has not gone up. The town’s contribution, capped at $15.8 million, remains at 2017 prices. The increased cost will be paid for through increased fundraising. And the “value engineering” cost reductions reflected in the current request for bids make only minor changes to the proposal approved by 65% of voters in 2021.
Professional estimates for the cost for repairing the present building stand at $20 million or higher and accomplish none of the programming goals identified above. Without program improvements, repair plans offer little fundraising potential.
Fundraising for the full renovation and expansion remains robust despite the lack of certainty of the project. Through the generosity of individuals and organizations, the total committed so far is just shy of $10 million. We invite you to help by making a financial commitment of any amount on the campaign’s website and adding your names to the hundreds who have already done so at joneslibrarycapitalcampaign.org/support.
We remain optimistic that the re-bid process will bring the total cost of the project within our fundraising reach, restoring the kind of community library envisioned by its 1928 founders.
Lee Edwards and Kent W. Faerber are co-chairs, and Nancy Campbell, Kelly Erwin, Carol Johnson, Laetitia LaFollette, David Lithgow, Martin Miller, Lisa Perlbinder, Dale Peterson, George Ryan and Cheryl Zoll are volunteer members of the Jones Library Capital Campaign committee.
