By Adam Davis
At Monday’s Board of Aldermen’s meeting, July 15, Mayor Michael Doenges unveiled a plan for the City of Rutland and Rutland Free Library to explore the possibility of co-locating at 88 Merchants Row, the Asa Bloomer Building.
At 3 p.m. Tuesday, July 16, Doenges and Rutland Free Library Director Randal Smathers held a press conference to officially unveil the plans to investigate the location for a possible new civic center, which includes co-locating services for the Library, City Hall, and State of Vermont agencies.
“The idea formed of potentially doing a Rutland civic center. A place where the library and city hall could come together and have resources in one space, while at the same time reducing costs and that burden on our tax payers,” explained Mayor Doenges at the press conference. “When we look at city hall and the police department, we’re looking at $5 million in renovations just to get the buildings to a place where we can continue to operate and properly serve, from an accessible standpoint, our citizens,” Doenges continued.
“If this could be something that increases the efficiencies of city services while saving the taxpayers of Rutland significant costs down the road, it is our responsibility to seriously explore this potential opportunity,” said Mayor Doenges.
The idea arose late in May when Library representatives were updating City Mayor Michael Doenges about increasing cost estimates for needed renovations of its current location at 10 Court Street. As renovation planning continues, cost estimates have risen several million dollars above hoped-for levels.
Simultaneously, the City of Rutland wants to address costly and necessary renovations at the city hall location at One Strongs Avenue.
To align these efforts and reduce costs, Mayor Doenges has proposed exploring the concept of the city and the library co-locating, while investigating options to repurpose the current locations for the city’s highest and best uses, which could include housing, Doenges said Tuesday. “ It’s one of the biggest demands we have right now in our community,” he said.
Early research suggests the city could avoid as much as $10 million in bonding needed to update the two current locations, costs that will have to be borne by city taxpayers over time.
“We are in the middle of an exploratory phase … we will continue with that to make sure the building has what we need,” Smathers explained, Tuesday. “We see this as a great opportunity to get the project done for $4.4 million, as opposed to $9.5 million if we were to renovate this space (RFL). Given the financial difference, it would be irresponsible of us to not pursue the opportunity,” he added.
“If this could be something that increases the efficiencies of city services while saving the taxpayers of Rutland significant costs down the road, it is our responsibility to seriously explore this potential opportunity,” said Mayor Doenges. “Even though we are in the initial research phase, we believe that having a space that can bring community services together, while saving the taxpayers money, is an obvious win-win. We will be asking for citizen engagement, and soon we will be announcing ways for Rutlanders to provide direct feedback and bring their perspectives to the process. We are confident that if this concept works, it will open up a variety of opportunities for the Rutland community.”
The library board of trustees, along with Director Randal Smathers and a committee of local residents who volunteered to advise on the renovations, agreed to look into the library portion of the move. For several weeks, the library has been working with Architect Casey Gecha of Rutland’s NBF Architects, Building Project Manager Elisabeth Kulas, engineers, and the State of Vermont Department of Building and General Services to evaluate the proposal.
Early results suggest the move would be both feasible and cost-effective, so the partners are today formally announcing their joint investigation into the move. That phase should wrap up in September.
A major piece of planned funding is some $1.5 million in a U.S. Treasury grant the library has applied for that requires all money be spent by the end of 2026. In order to meet that deadline, the library needs to be finalizing its design team, feasibility, and location this fall.
The library has been publicly seeking an improved site for well over a decade, going back to a 2009 proposal to make it the ground-floor anchor of a move to “The Pit,” at Center and Wales streets. The library has been studying options for renovation and/or relocation almost continuously since.
“Rutland City deserves a library and a city hall that can be accessible and serve its citizens to the best of its ability. Quite frankly, that’s why we’re starting to explore this effort,” Doenges concluded.
