The plan to renovate the E.C. Scranton Memorial Library on Boston Post Road is ready to move forward. In mid-November, the library officially opened its temporary space in North Madison and received a promising construction bid for the main building in the downtown area.

Library officials formally opened the temporary library space, located at 1250 Durham Road on the Madison Earth Care property, on Nov. 15 with a ribbon cutting, attended by library patrons, members of the Madison Chamber of Commerce, and local elected officials.

At the ribbon cutting, Interim Library Director Laura Downes thanked Madison Earth Care for its support and Library Board of Trustees President Beth Coyne thanked all employees for the work applied to getting the temporary space up and running.

“The staff has been remarkable and we as a board are so grateful for all that you have done,” she said “You are making this look far to easy and I know how much effort you have out in and how much driving up and down Route 79 here. We care so much about you and the morale and we are grateful that we are here and we will have this beautiful new library. Thank you to everyone who has been coming up here.”

The temporary space is significantly smaller than the main library building, so not all of the library’s collection will be available to residents during the construction period.

According to a press release sent out by library officials regarding the opening of the temporary space, “While the library has taken only a portion of its collection to the Madison Earth Care location (the rest will be placed in storage), a wide range of teen, children’s books, and new releases will be available for patrons. Computers will be set up for patron use. Museum passes will continue to be available. There is adequate parking with an outdoor book drop.

“In addition,” the release continues, “Scranton Library patrons can rely on the LION sharing network to locate and request materials. The library will offer as much programming for both children and adults as possible while in the temporary location; look for specific offerings listed on the library website” www.scrantonlibrary.org.

The Main Building Construction

The plan to renovate the E.C. Scranton Memorial Library was approved by the voters in 2017. Specifically, voters approved bonding $9 million for the renovation project and the library pledge to raise $6 million to cover the remaining project costs.

From the day the renovation was approved to now, the project has undergone significant changes including a shift in architects, projected cost overruns, energy operating cost concerns, and the proposed elimination of the Hull Building.

By far one of the largest challenges the Library Building Committee encountered came up this summer after the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) threatened to withhold a large part of the renovation project funding over preservation of the Hull Building. The issue took time to resolve, but the committee and SHPO were eventually able to come to terms, sparing the project any more funding challenges or timeline issues.

With all approvals in place, the committee put the project out to bid this fall. As of mid-November, Building Committee Chair Graham Curtis informed the Board of Finance (BOF) that the committee hard received a promising bid.

“We opened our bids last Thursday and we were in a very good bidding market; the timing was good,” he said. “We voted last night to proceed with a contractor. We are going to interview him tomorrow morning, but I can tell you we are $1 million under our construction budget right now.”

The winning bid went to Enterprise Builders for a total cost of $9,847,952, under the roughly $11 million construction threshold for the project. Curtis said he is pleased with the selection and that the contractor should be able to start work this winter.

“Winter is coming so the contractors do want to get winter work,” he said. “They are trying to load up their winter work and he is a very good contractor. He comes highly recommended. I have worked with him before and Colliers International, our consultant, has worked with him before.”

For more information, visit www.scrantonlibrary.org or call 203-245-7365.