Town Funding Bodies To Vote Next Month on Support for New Canaan Library Rebuilding Plan

The town’s two major funding bodies will vote next month on a proposal to help kickstart a capital campaign for a widely anticipated rebuild of New Canaan Library, officials say.

A vision for a future New Canaan Library. The corner at the bottom is at South Avenue and Maple Street, with South Avenue running to the left. Published with permission from the library

Conceived by town officials and introduced at public meetings in June, the allocation would help the library acquire a key .19-acre property on its block. Though formal agendas have not yet been finalized, the Board of Finance is expected to vote on the measure at its Sept. 13 meeting, with the Town Council to follow on Sept. 21, First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said.

“I expect it to be a voting item we have heard nothing but positives from everyone about our attempt to help library and get this started,” he said.

It’s a hugely important step in that start, advocates of the move say, both for the future library and the town at large: Because of setback regulations, a major gateway into the New Canaan at South Avenue and Maple Street could only serve as a parking lot for a future library unless the property 48 South Ave. is part of the “new” campus.

At a Board of Finance meeting in June, town officials raised the prospect supporting the library with about $500,000—approximately one-third of what it could cost to purchase the key South Avenue parcel.

This home at 48 South Ave. occupies .19 acres mid-block, opposite the New Canaan Library. Town officials said Tuesday that it’s key to the library’s rebuilding plans that this house is acquired and razed to make room for the new facility, and opened up a discussion about New Canaan possibly helping out with the acquisition. Credit: Michael Dinan

Noting that numbers have not been finalized and that “there’s no guarantee going forward about money being committed to the library,” Town Council Chairman Bill Walbert said nonetheless that the town “would like to do something to jumpstart the library’s campaign.”

“We are very excited about it, because what is the alternative? The alternative is that without that property, the entrance to town is a parking lot, an expanded parking lot, and is that really what we would want people to see as they come into town up South Avenue?”

What they would see, if library officials get their way, is an attractive and state-of-the art facility that rises to the meet the needs of New Canaanites. Data from the library underscores the organization’s importance and reach among locals: 87 percent of households in New Canaan have an active library membership.

Library officials long have said that a new library is needed. Just two-thirds or so of the current, 37,000-square-foot building is usable, and the library has experienced chronic problems with its elevator, condenser and other infrastructure.

For more than two years, designs for a new building that will cost about $25 million have assumed the South Avenue property would be acquired. Officials have said a new facility will roughly double the amount of usable space at the library, feature modern architecture and preserve a traditional look for an area dedicated to events and meeting spaces.

Yet, though a capital campaign committee formed more than one year ago, renderings are needed to approach prospective donors and fundraise in earnest.

Library officials said during budget hearings last fiscal year that they intend to move forward with a new facility regardless of whether the final parcel on South Avenue is acquired.

Asked for her thoughts on the possibility of town officials working to secure the library funds to help get its capital campaign going, Library Director Lisa Oldham said: “We are delighted at the prospect of town support in helping us to kickstart the library building project.”