RUTLAND — At first glance, the plan for a new Rutland Free Library looked promising: Replace its pre-Civil War-era brick building with nearby downtown space in hopes of cutting construction costs in half and corralling a host of other local government services into a “civic center.”
If only an architect hadn’t crunched the numbers and calculated a $18 million price tag that’s four times higher than originally estimated.
“That’s not a savings,” library director Randal Smathers said this month. “That’s about what it would cost to redo the building.”
Rutland — Vermont’s most populous municipality outside of Chittenden County — recently green-lit a new tax increment financing district to support a seven-story hotel and apartment block and other downtown improvements. But after 15 years of attempted upgrades, its public library has hit another roadblock on the path toward renovating or replacing its aging facility.
“Back to the drawing board,” Smathers said.
The 76,000-book library has a long history of struggling with space. Since its founding in 1886, the institution has moved from various downtown storefronts, the since-demolished Memorial Hall and the old Longfellow School to its current site — an 1858 Renaissance Revival structure at the corner of Court and Center streets that, up until 1935, housed the city’s post office, courthouse and jail.
“In location and style, this influential building reflects the changes occurring in the city as a result of its initial railroad boom,” the national Society of Architectural Historians has noted. “The site was a compromise, partway down the hill between the original village center on Main Street and the new commercial focus developing in the vicinity of the railroad depot.”
Residents approved two additions in the 1960s and 1980s, only to see the original building’s ceilings sag and foundation crumble. The library unveiled plans to move to space at nearby Center and Wales streets in 2009 and the former College of St. Joseph campus on the city’s outskirts in 2020, only to be tripped up by costs and criticism.
“Top architects told us the public will compare whatever design we put forward to an idealized library they remember when they were children, and that’s absolutely true,” Smathers told VTDigger last winter during the latest round of meetings. “People start their input with, ‘When I was a kid …’ They form emotional attachments. They love this building. It’s beautiful — and also terrible for a modern library.”
Staying put isn’t any cheaper. The library had banked $1.5 million for capital repairs a year ago when it learned estimates to renovate the current building had risen to nearly 10 times that much. Rutland Mayor Mike Doenges then suggested the library join City Hall in studying the possibility of relocating together in the downtown’s three-decade-old Asa Bloomer state office building on Merchants Row.
‘Libraries have unique challenges’
Leaders hoped the proposed “civic center” — similar to South Burlington’s shared library and city office building that opened in 2021 — would join a list of more than 30 other Vermont library building projects approved since 2010.
But while Rutland residents have acknowledged the library’s problems, they weren’t sold on the proposed solution. At public hearings earlier this year, they voiced reservations about finding parking and feeling safe downtown.
Moving on to develop blueprints and a budget, the library learned its initial civic center project estimate of $4.5 million would actually be closer to $18 million.
“Libraries have unique challenges, the first one being that books are really, really heavy,” Smathers said this past week of a list of complications shared by an architect. “We started looking at the work to upgrade to the standards we would need and the savings went away.”
Back at square one, the library recently received two major private donations, raising its building fund to $4.3 million.
“The library is ready, willing and able to invest that somewhere in downtown Rutland,” Smathers said.
But the exact location remains up in the air. Smathers noted the local Walmart is projected to leave its 76,000-square-foot Rutland Plaza anchor space in 2027 for a new “supercenter” at the former Diamond Run Mall property in neighboring Rutland Town.
“If Walmart does move out, Rutland is going to need reasons for people to go downtown, and a beautiful new library that pays for a third of its own cost upfront seems to me to be the kind of investment that makes a lot of sense,” Smathers said. “If that possibility or another plot of land is available, we need to take a serious look at it.”
In a statement, the Brixmor Property Group, the Rutland Plaza’s operator, said it was “working on strategies to backfill the space” with the expectation Walmart would remain for two more years.
“Our goal is to bring in retailers that are relevant to the communities we serve and we’re happy to work with the city to achieve that,” Brixmor spokesperson Maria Pace said.
Whatever the future holds, Smathers said it can’t be the status quo.
“The problems in this building are not going away,” he said. “At some point, likely in the next five years, something is going to break and we’re not going to be able to open for the public. If somebody is looking for a tax write-off and wants to donate a 25,000-square-foot building, I’m the guy to call.”
