Finance Committee hears $35.7 million West Yarmouth library plan; state grant would cover about $13.4 million

The Yarmouth Finance Committee on March 11 received a detailed presentation from the Library Building Committee and the project architect on a proposed new West Yarmouth library that the team estimates will cost $35,700,000 in total and would be partially funded by a Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) construction grant.

Architect Matt Oudens told the committee the plan calls for a roughly 25,000-square-foot, single-story building arranged in three wings and proposed as a mass timber frame. He described a 32-month schedule once design is approved: 12 months of design, two months to bid and about 18 months of construction. "The grand total is $35,700,000," Oudens said, and he walked the committee through MBLC-eligible and non-eligible line items, contingency assumptions and soft costs.

Why it matters: the MBLC grant calculator presented to the committee applied MBLC percentage tiers to the project’s eligible costs (total eligible: $32,185,000) and produced an estimated award of $13,442,768 (about 37.5% of total project cost). Oudens summarized the town’s share as approximately $22,263,322 based on the grant calculation; Finance Chair Richard Simon referenced the Finance Director’s debt schedule and presented a related net bond figure of $21,873,058 for purposes of estimating tax impact.

Details and financing: Oudens said the construction base is about $27.7 million with a 6% construction contingency and a project contingency of 3.5%; furniture, fixtures and equipment (FF&E) were estimated at $1.67 million. The team included an estimated $724,000 in parking improvements attributable to the adjacent school (48 parking spaces/new drop-off). "For the MBLC grant there are certain costs that are eligible and others that are not," Oudens said during the presentation.

Committee members pressed for clarity on several points. Committee member John Anderson asked about contingencies and the reliability of the cost estimates; Oudens said the estimate includes a year of escalation at roughly 6% and agreed to provide follow-up detail. Member Rafael Gutierrez asked why the project team did not pursue renovating MacArthur School; Oudens said the building is not accessible, would require extensive code upgrades and is leased by the Cape Cod Collaborative through 2031, and Traver added that a renovation would not be eligible for the MBLC grant.

Operational and tax impacts: Committee members asked about ongoing operating costs and staffing for a larger facility. Simon said the Finance Director supplied a debt-service schedule based on a 20-year bond at 3.75% that uses a net project figure (presented as $21,873,058) and that, by his calculation, the bond would add about $0.16 to the tax rate (roughly $117 on a $700,000 home), beginning in 2031 and declining thereafter. Library Director David Aronson said program usage is likely to rise with a larger, ‘‘right-sized’’ community library, and he noted recent private support, saying a few months ago an estate donated about $200,000 to the library.

Next steps: The Finance Committee will vote its recommendation on Article 15 at its March 18 meeting. Simon and Alyssa Mullin announced they would recuse themselves from that vote to avoid an appearance of conflict of interest.