Around Town

‘We Have Found the Right Person’: New Canaan Library Hires CEO and President

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New Canaan Library has hired a Connecticut library director with more than one decade of experience in both small and large public libraries across the nation as its new CEO and president. Kimberly McNally, most recently the director of the Berlin Peck Memorial Library in Berlin, Conn., will start Feb. 1 in New Canaan, according to a press release. “A library is the center of the community and a place for growth and connection for everyone,” McNally said in the release. “The New Canaan Library, with its thoughtfully designed building and dynamic resources, is leading the way for how libraries in Connecticut and around the country can support their communities in new and exciting ways.

Board of Selectmen

Officials: Legacy Library Building To Be Moved in June (Regardless of the Town’s Future Land Acquisitions)

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The remnants of the legacy library building, which is currently undergoing asbestos abatement, will be moved to a slab near the Gulf station in June, as widely anticipated new features of the campus come online, officials said Tuesday. Approved by the Planning & Zoning Commission in November—during a meeting where that appointed body’s chair noted that preservation doesn’t necessarily mean the building in question remains in place—plans call for the so-called “1913 library” to be secured and moved out of the way of a town green. Asked for an update on that part of the library project, Bob Butman, president of the organization’s Board of Trustees, told members of the Board of Selectmen during their regular meeting that “at this point in time we have been working with our architects and with various construction planners and obviously Turner to build all the plans to move the 1913 building to the location that was approved by P&Z, which is up the hill, sort of backing up against the Gulf station.”

“That will not happen until such time as we finish the demolition of the surrounding parts of the library, which includes an effort underway right  now for abatement of asbestos and other work associated with preparing that 1913 building to be moved,” he said during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “We would anticipate that that would occur roughly in the June timeframe, but can’t be held to specifics because it’s going to be all dependent on weather, it’s going to be dependent on what else they find as part of the abatement process and how long it takes Turner and their team to finish their work.”

The comments came during a wider discussion and approval of the first tranche of the town’s long-planned library construction loan. During the legacy library discussion, Selectman Kathleen Corbet appeared to ask whether, should the town purchase the Gulf station property at South Avenue and Cherry Street, the old building still would need to be moved.

Around Town

PHOTOS, VIDEO: ‘New’ New Canaan Library Opens to the Public

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Some day soon—“it could even be today,” Town Council Chair Steve Karl said Tuesday morning, addressing a crowd of 300-plus people gathered outside the new New Canaan Library—a boy or girl “will walk through these doors and learn to read for the first time.”

“They’ll be holding their parents’ hands, and when they leave here they may leave with a book in the other hand,” Karl said. “Their eyes will be open and they will begin a journey of learning that will last a lifetime. It’s been a magical journey on the corner of Main and Cherry for 100 years now. I actually learned to read here, as well. When the ribbon is cut in a few short minutes, it will represent hundreds of thousands of hours in long-range planning, thoughtful design, hard work, gritty determination and literally a small army of people putting this together.”

More than three years after library officials unveiled a vision for a dramatically reimagined facility and campus, New Canaan Library opened its doors at 9 a.m. on Feb.

Bob Butman

Library Offers To Move 1913 Building Facade to Western Side of Campus

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Library officials last week unveiled renderings of what they’re calling an offer of compromise to preservationists who are opposed to the demolition of a century-old structure as part of a plan to rebuild the downtown facility. 

Moving the 1913 building’s portico and the Main Street-facing wall to the western border of the library’s campus could cost about $600,000 to $700,000, Executive Director Lisa Oldham told members of the Board of Finance during their regular meeting, held June 8 both in person and via videoconference. The library is “trying to get to a compromise solution that would respectfully honor the past, memorialize meaningfully the original library and not sacrifice the green, given the importance of the green to the overall campus,” Oldham told the finance board. At past public meetings, the library has said it would memorialize the 1913 building and its 1930s addition with professional photos, a limited edition commemorative book and works of art featuring the original structure that would become part of a permanent collection on display in the new facility. Library officials also have said in the past that granite from the 1913 facade would be used in a retaining wall for the green overlooking Cherry and Main Streets. The new proposal would see the portico and wall, at a depth of about eight feet, moved to the property line that the library shares with the gas station, New Canaan Library Board of Trustees President Bob Butman said.

Bob Butman

Library To Request Higher Town Contribution for Rebuilding Project; Proposed Allocation Still One Year Away

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New Canaan Library in presenting its operating budget for fiscal year 2020 in the coming weeks will request that municipal funding bodies increase the town’s planned contribution to the organization’s widely anticipated rebuilding project from $5 million to $10 million, officials said Monday. Though the organization will not make a formal capital request this year, “We have shared with every person that will talk to us that we are hearing from the community an expectation that the town should be in at a more significant number,” library Director Lisa Oldham said during a meeting with members of a Board of Finance subcommittee. “Mainly I hear $10 million,” she said at the meeting, held at the library. “We have shared that with everybody. When we come to talk to you, it is likely that our ask will be more in that range.”

She addressed Neil Budnick and Chris LeBris, members of the Board of Finance Library Liaison Subcommittee.