The Selling of the Jones Library Project in 12 Quotes
Photo: https://www.joneslibrary.org/
The saga of the Jones Library Demolition-Renovation-Expansion (project proponents would prefer to omit “Demolition” from the title) has occupied the local public consciousness for more than ten years, sowing division, consuming town official’s and staff time, running up millions in design costs and diverting attention from Amherst’s competing budget priorities. How has the controversial undertaking managed to get this far? I have selected twelve quotes from the initiative’s early days that illustrate the thinking and strategizing behind pushing the project forward.
- “During my first week at The Jones, Commissioner Katherine Dibble stopped by to congratulate and welcome me to Amherst. Her next comment was, “So when are you going to do something about this building?” I promised that, indeed, we would be first in line for a Planning and Design grant.”
Jones Library Director Sharon Sharry, October 2011
Jones Library 2016-17 MBLC Construction Grant Application
The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) has never appreciated that the historic Jones Library, despite its many rooms and unorthodox floorplan, has long been treasured for its charm and originality by patrons. Dibble’s encouragement for the Jones leadership to seek a construction grant may have been seen as a green light to aim high. Amherst received the largest of 33 state grant awards — $13.8 million toward a then $36.3 million project – and consequently also the largest municipal matching share. - “Anybody who’s been in the Jones knows that it’s a wonderful historic and beloved building but it wasn’t set up to be a library.”
Austin Sarat, candidate for Library Trustee, July 18, 2012
Conversations with Austin Sarat
Austin Sarat, future President of the Board of Trustees and Chair of the Jones Library Building Committee (JLBC) was an early adopter of the idea that the Jones Library needed to be transformed from designer Allen H. Cox’s conception of the building being “Mother Amherst’s Hearth” to the MBLC’s vision of the public library as a modern, expansive community center. - “I understand that staff value a clean, well lit and attractive work space. However, some of the ‘prime real estate’ in the Jones is currently limited to staff areas. This is space that is not available to the patrons, the people for whom the building was erected.”
Anna Popp, Massachusetts Library System, 2012
Space planning recommendations for Jones Library
Library consultant Popp laid out a road map for the Jones Library to achieve its programming goals within the existing building’s footprint. Her report remained hidden from public view until unearthed by a public record request in 2022. - “We have a problem because many people say, ‘What’s wrong with the Library?’ … We won’t talk about it, but parking is a big problem.”
Board of Trustees President, Austin Sarat, November 24, 2014
Jones Library Feasibility Committee Meeting Minutes
By the first meeting of the Jones Library Feasibility Committee, the grant seekers recognized that selling the public on an expensive, potentially destructive transformation of the Jones Library would be a challenge. 79% of respondents to a 2015 survey said that they were extremely likely to recommend the Jones Library. 48% said that they attend library programs “not at all often.”
5. “The site needs to be able to be able to handle a 100,000 square foot building”
Jonathan Tucker, Amherst Planning Director, April 7, 2015
Analysis of Library Sites
Taking the trustees’ word for how much space was needed, the Amherst Planning Department evaluated possible sites for main library services that could accommodate a 100,000 sq. ft. building, or the 4th largest public library building in Massachusetts.
6. “Strategies. […] Expand funding through the Town of Amherst’s appropriations…”
Board of Trustees and Director, June 4, 2015
Jones Library Long Range Plan FY2017-FY2021
Massaachusetts Division of Local Services data has shown that Amherst devotes 2.65% of its general fund expenditures to library operations, ranking it second highest in the commonwealth. Nonetheless, the Jones Trustees identified the need for the Town of Amherst to increase its contribution of funds to the library.
7. “The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners has adopted a set of standards for library planning in Massachusetts (the ‘Wisconsin Standards’). These standards call for a library of 74,000 square feet to serve a population of the size served by The Jones Library (50,000). This Program, however, describes an expanded/renovated Library building of 110,000 gross square feet.”
The Trustees, Staff, Friends and Patrons of The Jones Library, Inc., July 2, 2015
The Jones Library, Inc. Building Program
With no one to push back, Jones Library leaders continued to overstate space needs and service population in the library’s revised long range plan which served to justify its grant request.
8. “The Library really needs to show the need for this square footage.”
John Kuhn, Kuhn-Riddle Architects, January 29, 2016
Jones Library Feasibility Committee Meeting Minutes
John Kuhn, principal of Kuhn-Riddle Architects (KRA), advised the Jones Library Feasibility Committee in its grant quest. KRA would later author a report relied on by project proponents to claim that repairing the library would cost more than demolishing the 1993 addition, appending a 15,000 sq. ft. addition in the rear and revamping the 1928 portion of the building.
9. “On the advice of Town Meeting, 70% of the Kinsey Garden will be preserved, and the remaining 30% will be relocated to the front/sides of the Library”
Jones Library Trustees, May 10, 2017
Mailing to Town Meeting advocating Article 23. Authorization of MBLC Grant Application
Plans to preserve the Kinsey Memorial Garden on the north side of the library have been abandoned, with garden plantings relocated to Kestrel Trust headquarters in South Amherst.
10. “The existing building to be renovated is:
[ ] On the National Register of Historic Places
[ ] On the Massachusetts Historical Commission’s Inventory of Historic and Archaeological Assets
[ X ] In an historic district”
Jones Library Trustees and Feasibility Committee, January 26, 2017
Jones Library 2016-17 MBLC Construction Grant Application
The Jones Library is a contributing structure to the Amherst Central Business District which is listed on both the State and National Registers of Historic Places. The MBLC grant application understated the Jones Library’s historical significance.
11. “This library will be one of the greenest buildings, if not the greenest building in Amherst and will certainly be a model of environmental sustainability in libraries throughout the Commonwealth.”
Board of Trustees President, Austin Sarat, March 25, 2022
Amherst Community Chat – Jones Library Building Project
In the early going the trustees enlisted Finegold Alexander Architects to recommend energy conservation measures (ECMs) that included photovoltaic panels, triple pane replacement window glazing, and low embodied carbon cross laminated timber construction. These features were widely touted to win funding from the Amherst Town Council and attract private donations. With the acceptance of drastic cost-saving “value engineering” cuts, all three of these ECMs are gone.
12. “The trustees have modified their plan to include significant sustainability measures though they’re not even subject to the net zero energy bylaw. But I must say, and I want you to make sure you hear this message loud and clear, let me state it without equivocation that as long as I have anything to say about it there will be no more money than what we’re voting tonight. This is all you get and we will not favor you in future operating budgets. The town will not allow cost overruns.”
Town Council President Lynn Griesemer, April 5, 2021
Special Town Council Meeting – Public Forum on Jones Library Appropriations
Town Council President Lynn Griesemer has been an unwavering advocate for town funding of the Jones Library building project even as the cost estimate has risen from $36.3 million to $46.1 million and the Capital Campaign has failed to meet its targeted remittance to the town. Critics have argued that Griesemer’s pledge to limit Town spending on the project to $15.8 million – one of the largest commitments of municipal funds to a library project in Massachusetts history – is insincere. Additional interest payments carried by the Town are projected to be $9 million, promised design features have evaporated, and the final cost to the town for the demolition-renovation-expansion project remains uncertain.
Devastating, Jeff!
And the Jones was precisely set up on purpose to be a public library! It simply departed, quite consciously, from the then-prevalent Andrew Carnegie “Temple of Learning” approach to public library design.
The founding Trustees planned the Jones so that patrons would be comfortable staying it and reading there, as if in a beautiful home, not just stopping by briefly to come out with books; engaging in crafts such as pottery-making and weaving; and meeting for civic purposes.
One measure of their success? The tenacity with which, since 2016, increasing numbers of present-day patrons who love their Jones Library have fought to keep its now-historic design features, even while acknowledging that the building needs serious upgrades in insulation, as to the leaky Atrium glass roof, and in its electrical and HVAC systems. Geothermal, anyone?
If you are one of us, please do sign that petition in support!
Added to the above quotes are promises that the library project wouldn’t raise our taxes and that the project was supported by 65% of voters in referendum. The necessary maintenance and capital improvement projects that the town will put off to fund the library boondoggle will have to be done eventually, and will have to be paid for. Not going ahead with the library project would allow the town to build needed fire station and DPW facilities sooner and for less money. While it’s true that 65% of the voters in the library project referendum approved of the project, that was only 22% of the town’s eligible voters and 8% of town residents, 100% of whom will end up paying for it.
i was recently in the atrium/reading room on a bright sunny day.
the amount of natural light coming into the room seemed greatly reduced.
i looked up at the skylights and they are COVERED IN DIRT. it did not look like a few months worth, more like from a few years of neglect!!!
and if the skylights leak after 30 years, you replace the glazing gaskets and / or repair the curb flashing. it’s called MAINTENANCE, which should
be allocated in a any building’s budget.
if the library is unwilling or unable to maintain the present structure, why should we assume that the expanded library will have a more diligent upkeep
Dan, I suppose one would first have to determine why the maintenance was “deferred” during the past decade. Hmmm…
Hi, Dan – I’m glad to say that the recent Jones Library “establishment” is not responsible for the leaking Atrium roof. When I was a Trustee (2009-2012), librarians employed there since the 1993 addition opened told me that it has leaked from day one.
The Trustees did have the Atrium roof recaulked during my term.
A local architect who watched the Atrium roof being installed has told me that its drainage pipes — through those square, white fluted columns in the Atrium — are simply too narrow to accommodate the volume of water hitting the roof.
thanks for the correction. my apologies. will be more careful in the future
Just to respond to Dan Wallack’s comment about the “dirt” on the Jones atrium glass. This is not due to neglect. In fact, it is a frosted coat intentionally applied to the “sunward” side of the atrium. This was done intentionally during the heat wave earlier this summer when the failing air conditioning was unable keep up. It drastically reduced the sweltering conditions in the building at the time
And just to respond to Steven Nelson’s comment. Why has the HVAC repair been delayed for so long. Modern heat pumps (apparently heat pumps were invented in the 1800’s) have been around for a decade. Many people I know have had them for years.
Arlie, I’m not aware of anyone that is against replacing the entire HVAC system at the Jones. Certainly, it is just one of several extensive and expensive updates touching all floors of the building that necessitate closing to the public for extended periods of time. And certainly, the amount of time it’s taken to discuss, debate, plan, reject, vote on, and replan and re-argue the renovation is almost surely why such larger renovations have never occurred
Oh, I see, it’s because of the people who disagree with the proposed project. Interesting… I thought it was the Trustees and the Library Director who are charged with maintaining the Historic Jones Library in good repair. And, of course, any major project requires the Library to close for a period. As will the current proposed project .
Regarding the Kinsey Garden, since it was referenced here (item 9) and Thursday night by the library director describing the space left by the garden’s removal last year, I think it is important to provide some information as to why “Plans to preserve the Kinsey Memorial Garden on the north side of the library have been abandoned, with garden plantings relocated to Kestrel Trust headquarters in South Amherst”.
From Carol Pope:
“I am the designer and previous benefactor of the Kinsey Garden, dedicated to the memory of my husband, David Chapin Kinsey, at the Jones Library. From 1999 when the garden was installed with the help of 60 friends, and students /colleagues of my husband’s from UMass, I oversaw the original plantings procured largely with memorial contributions in David’s name with some help offered by Friends of the Jones. From 1999 until 2015, I provided annually from my own funds additional plantings typically costing $1,000 or more per year…
It beautified the very messy, post-construction space behind the building, adding handsome stone benches and stairs connecting to the History Museum’s 18th century garden…
In 2015, despite such major financial contributions over 16 years, my regular oversight of the hired workers and my original and continuing pro bono design of the garden, I was summarily and rudely dismissed (emphasis added) by the new Library Director. From then on, the Kinsey Garden has been barely maintained, even less so recently. Lovely unusual ground covers unifying the whole garden were destroyed, trees and shrubs were brutally pruned or completely removed, and weeds now cover most of the sloping hillside and much of other areas…”
Note: At one point after, that Ms. Pope was passing through the garden prompted the building maintenance supervisor to report her to the library director.
As a long-time member of the Kestrel Land Trust, fearing the complete destruction of the garden and its plantings and with the support of private fundraising, Ms. Pope arranged for many plantings from the Kinsey Garden to be moved (and, thereby, protected) to the KLT property on Bay Road.
So, if you hear the library director or a member of the Board of Trustees bemoan the condition of the large space behind the library if anything less than their current plan goes through, please remember who was responsible for that now empty space.
Re: the removal of the Pope-Kinsey Garden on the building’s north side.
There were several comments made at Thursday night’s hearings about the value of the P-K Garden to the library grounds and how its removal has been a loss for library users and townspeople.
I was AMAZED when Sharon Sharry said with a straight face at the hearing that there was no problem with the removal of the P-K Garden because many of its plants had been moved to the new Kestrel Trust HQ’s! WOW.