LETTER: LIBRARY DESIGN UPDATE NEEDLESSLY LARGE, COSTLY, AND UNSUSTAINABLE

Editor’s note:  This letter was also sent to the Amherst Town Council and the Amherst Bulletin.

At its meeting on Wednesday, February 26, the Jones Library Trustees’ Feasibility and Design Committee voted unanimously to approve a major redesign of the $49 million proposed Jones Library demolition/construction project. 

The Meeting Agenda said only that Finegold Alexander Architects would provide a “Design Update” on the proposed project. The Agenda gave no notice that the Committee would decide that day on the re-design. The Agenda said that there would be handouts. The sole handout had the Agenda and last meeting’s minutes.  The audience was about two dozen Library staff and members of the public. We had to make do with schematic designs that the architects projected on the Woodbury Room’s usual modest screen, far from the audience. 

The Committee deferred public comment until after the presentation. Staff, as well as the public, had questions. What became clear is that this re-design is essentially set in stone. It is likewise clear that the total proposed project is still needlessly large, costly, and unsustainable.

As you recall, the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) approved this proposed project and awarded it a provisional construction grant in 2017. Afterward, however, the MBLC required re-design, at the Jones Library’s expense, in order to move the Large Meeting Room elsewhere than the First Floor.

This re-design has no sustainability improvements as compared with the initial design. That design failed to qualify for even the lowest level of LEED certification. Doesn’t best practice mean planning for sustainability, from a project’s very inception? Currently, sustainability seems to be a speculative future add-on, at unspecified cost. 

For their re-design, the architects found space for the Large Meeting Room in the basement. For the purpose, they converted a 3,000 SF windowless, doorless room: in their initial design, this sealed room had only a cement slab. For the most part, that slab occupied space meant to be left unused after the present Woodbury Room was demolished. 

You’ll recall that the Woodbury Room was renovated as recently as 2012. That cost more than $170,000 from Professor and Mrs. Woodbury’s generous bequest and gift. 

The proposed re-design is more compact than the architects’ initial design. It nonetheless maintains the same increase in square footage: from the present 51,000 SF, as the architects determined several years ago, to 68,000 SF. 

The redesign’s exterior now echoes the gambrel roofs of the historic 1928 Jones Library and its neighbor to the west, the historic Strong House. The exterior material would be what the architects called “masonry” – evidently, artificial stone. They acknowledged that this would not match the Library’s native field stone. 

The redesign would retain the original carved walnut staircase in the Library’s foyer. But it would still close off the original, accessible East entrance. I’ve seen the wide, sturdy roof outside this entrance keep as many as 8 to 10 people dry in a downpour. It can similarly shelter several wheelchairs easily. 

Instead, the redesign would make the iconic main entrance accessible, with a canopy of some sort installed over its historic Connecticut Valley split pediment. The architects never showed a straight-on view of this proposed change. Thanks to Community Preservation Act grants to the Library, there is now a Historic Preservation Restriction on the Library’s Amity Street façade. Whether these proposed alterations comport with the Restriction is very much open to question. 

The redesign would still devote space to a $400,000 automatic book-sorting machine, with conveyer belts throughout the Library — even though the proposed project would not add a single book.

This redesign, like the architects’ initial design, puts Special Collections in the basement. Its proposed space still has windows opening onto the driveway. It is therefore vulnerable to water damage in case of a fire. It is even more vulnerable to theft.

International art and artifact theft cost many billions of dollars per year. Worldwide, this crime is third in dollar value, behind drugs and human trafficking. Much of this theft is, so to speak, “to order.”   

Special Collections has irreplaceable treasures, particularly from Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. Furthermore, it draws scholars and visitors from around the world. They stay in Amherst accommodations and eat in Amherst restaurants. From both points of view, it is a matter of legitimate concern that this redesign leaves Special Collections so poorly protected.

It is also regrettable that neither the Trustees nor anyone else has ever invested some $15,000 in having a professional library space planner suggest how to use, most efficiently, the space that the Jones has now. Also, up to 1,700 SF in additional interior space are available for Special Collections, by restoring part or all of the second floor in the present Adult Reading Room. 

Yes, the Jones Library needs renovation. No one disagrees with this. The glass Atrium roof, for instance, leaks regularly. That the Trustees are reportedly seeking an updated estimate for this is good news. 

Interestingly, an increase of any size in the Library’s external dimensions, even just in those of the Atrium roof, would have qualified for an MBLC grant. Could Town Council withdraw the application for the present grant, and thereafter submit one more appropriate – and in the present MBLC grant round? Nothing in the applicable law or regulations forbids it. Why not explore this?  

Regardless, what the Library does not need, in my view as a former Trustee President, is the overblown proposed project. It would destroy the entire 1993 brick addition. This alone would create more than 1,600 tons of demolition debris. It would then add some 34,000 SF in new construction.

As UMass Professor of Architecture Max Page reminds us, “Nearly half of all greenhouse gases are produced in the construction, demolition, and operation of commercial and residential buildings.” Why Preservation Matters: Yale (2016), page 16. What does this wasteful proposed project say about Amherst’s sustainability goals?

This proposed project would, in addition, inevitably increase operating and maintenance costs, even if only to heat, cool, and clean the extra space. Will Town Council increase the Library’s appropriations accordingly? Please note: The Trustees still cannot afford to replace two full-time Library staff who retired more than a year ago. 

Finally, this proposed demolition/construction project might well require a debt exclusion override. This might jeopardize support for the override that the schools will doubtless need next year. 

The MBLC could award a construction grant for this proposed project as early as this July. The Town would then have but six months to commit its share of the cost. The time for Town Council to rethink this proposed project is now.

Sarah McKee

Sarah McKee is Past President, Jones Library Board of Trustees; Former General Counsel, Interpol U.S. National Central Bureau, Washington, D.C.; Member, D.C. Bar.