Letter: On The Jones Library’s Breach Of Contract For State Grant of $13.8M
Jones Library Front Entrance Photo: Jeff Lee
The following letter was sent to Borna Simon, Executive Director of The Massachusetts Historical Commission and James Lonergan, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Board Of Library Commissioners, and to the list of additional recipients copied below on October 4, 2022.
I respectfully ask the Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) to remind Town of Amherst (town) and Jones (i.e., town) Library officials copied below that:
- The town’s $13.8 million MBLC demolition/construction grant contract requires its project, as to the historic, 1928 portion of the Jones Library, to comply with the Massachusetts Historic Preservation Law
- The Town’s failure to comply is a breach of this contract); and that
- A breach works a forfeiture of the grant. This includes the $2.7 million tranche that the MBLC has already disbursed to the Town, plus interest.
The 1928 Jones Library is on the State (AMH.249) and National (Amherst Central Business District) Registers of Historic Places. The town was thus legally obligated to comply with the historic preservation law “as early as possible in the planning stages of the project….”
In a December 23, 2016 letter to Amherst Town Manager Paul Bockelman, copy to Jones Library Director Sharon Sharry, the MHC laid out what compliance initially requires:
“[C]omplete photographic coverage of proposed work locations on the exterior and interior of the library, keyed to sketch maps or floor plans…. detailed project description along with an indication of what exterior and interior sections of the building will be removed and whether they will be stored for future reuse…. existing and proposed perspective illustrations of the project, keyed to a sketch map.”
I am a past President of the Jones Library Board of Trustees. The MHC copied me on this letter. It also asked the town to send me a copy of these materials. In the nearly six years since that 2016 letter, the Town has sent no such materials, either to the MHC or to myself.
As you well know, such materials are to allow the MHC “to determine what effect the proposed project will have on the historic property and district.…” If any of these are “adverse effects,” e.g., “destruction or alteration of any part of the [1928 Library],” then “the project must adopt all prudent and feasible means to eliminate, minimize or mitigate adverse effects.”
Those who know the Jones Library can see that this project’s schematic designs show various “adverse effects” on the 1928 Library’s exterior and interior. These include installing a plexiglas-type canopy over its split-pedimented Connecticut Valley main entrance and blocking another front entrance, both in violation of a recent historic Preservation Restriction Agreement on the exterior (not yet recorded in the Hampshire Registry of Deeds). They also include removing original interior walls, staircases, fireplaces, fireplace surrounds, and Philippine mahogany paneling.
To “eliminate, minimize and mitigate [these] adverse effects,” therefore, the exterior and interior schematic designs will evidently need revision. The project’s “Full Project Timeline” (September 16, 2022) nonetheless shows “Schematic Design Complete” as of weeks ago, on August 29, 2022. The elaborate details in the July 1, 2022 schematics bear out this designation.
This “Timeline” then shows seven months for “Design Development,” starting October 2022, followed immediately by “Construction Documents,” starting May 2023. It however fails to show any time span for preparing the materials that the MHC requires, or for the MHC’s 30-day period for review, or for the subsequent MHC mandatory consultation process with public participation, and likely design revisions. Nor, crucially, do I know of any budget for that work.
For six years, the town’s recalcitrance in this matter has “frustrat[ed] the purpose of [the Massachusetts Historic Preservation Law.]” From all indications both Finegold Alexander Architects, the project’s architects, and Colliers International, its Owner’s Project Manager, acquiesce in the town’s flouting of the preservation law. Jones Library supporters’ advocacy has been futile. To uphold state law now, the impetus must come from the state.
Accordingly, I respectfully request that you remind Amherst town officials of what their MBLC grant contract demands – and of the financial consequences if they continue their failure to comply. Helpfully, 950 CMR 71.11 provides that the town must at once pause work on this project:
Should a state body … fail to provide the MHC with the information necessary to determine whether the project will adversely affect a State Register property, … then the state body shall not proceed with the project … until the MHC states that such failure has not frustrated the purpose of [Massachusetts Historic Preservation Law.][2]
The MHC has issued no such statement. Nor could it do so. To proceed, the town must first provide the required data, and participate in good faith in the MHC’s consultation process.
The 1928 Jones Library is a uniquely significant State and National historic treasure. That $13.8 million in Massachusetts public funding should finance a project with adverse effects on that Library, in violation of the Massachusetts Historic Preservation Law, is unacceptable.
Sarah McKee
Sarah McKee has lived in Amherst for more than 20 years. She is a former President of the Jones Library Trustees, and is a member of the D.C. Bar.
Cc: Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker
Massachusetts Senator Jo Comerford
Massachusetts Representative Mindy Domb
Amherst Town Council: towncouncil@amherstma.gov
Jones Library Board of Trustees: trustees@joneslibrary.org
Amherst Historical Commission: jhwald@emilydickinsonmuseum.org
Amherst Town Manager Paul Bockelman: townmanager@amherstma.gov
Jones Library Director Sharon Sharry: sharrys@joneslibrary.org
Amherst Finance Director Sean Mangano: manganos@amherstma.gov
Finegold Alexander Architects
Colliers International, Boston, MA
The other night on my way to a concert in Holyoke I went by to see for the first time their renovated library, also designed by Finegold Alexander Architects. I was appalled. It looks astoundingly cheap and generic – a simple rectangle of glass and steel. I urge people to go see it since it is so often touted as what we should aspire to.
In the cult film Repo Man, there’s a scene where all the products in a small grocery are packaged in white bags, boxes or cans, with black lettering (sans-serif capitals) indicating the generic items inside: FOOD, DRINK….
I’ve not visited the renovated library in Holyoke, so I don’t know whether its exterior is a white rectangular box with “LIBRARY” painted in black on the front wall, but one can imagine the dystopian future of the Jones should demolition/reconstruction go forward.
What’s next? Every book, covered in white with 4 letters — BOOK — in black?!
Thanks for your comment, Steve. The president of the Holyoke Friends of the Library very kindly gave me an hour’s tour of the interior several years ago. To my eye, unfortunately, the only inviting areas were the few that were relatively untouched.
thank you Sarah.