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Consultants: Russell Library anchors downtown; report recommends relocating City Hall to Main Street
Summary
A near-final feasibility study from Gohman says both Russell Library and City Hall anchor Middletowndowntown; consultants recommend keeping the library in place and consider relocating City Hall to Main Street to increase access and downtown activity. The report flags data limits and estimates potential tax revenue for redevelopment.
Don Poland, managing director of planning and strategy at Gohman, New York, presented a near-final feasibility report to the Middletown Library and Town Hall Feasibility Committee that concluded both the Russell Library and City Hall serve as anchors to downtown and recommended the library remain on its existing site while considering relocation of City Hall to Main Street.
Poland said the study’s visitor analysis shows substantial nonresident use of the library: 36% of library visitors came from outside Middletown in the past 12 months, 33.5% stopped in downtown before visiting the library and 21.6% stopped in downtown afterward. "That shows this kind of symbiotic relationship," Poland said, arguing a newer, larger library would likely draw more visitors and increase downtown interactions.
For City Hall, Poland said geofencing data presented a methodological challenge: Placer AI applies internal "blackouts" to properties it designates as sensitive and declined requests to remove them, forcing the team to use the nearby Monily parking lot as a proxy for City Hall activity. Using that proxy, Poland reported 81% of town hall visitors in the study period came from outside Middletown and that 14.5% stopped downtown before visiting City Hall while 47.3% stopped downtown afterward.
Based on a conceptual scenario from a developer labeled Landmark, Poland summarized a redevelopment estimate for the existing City Hall site of roughly 160,000 square feet of mixed use (including about 30 housing units and 90 hotel rooms). Adjusting for assessed value and current mill rates, he estimated potential new annual tax revenue of about $2,400,000 if the site were developed.
Poland cautioned that some data will be adjusted—the team will rework the library-value numbers to include nonbook materials and apply 2025 inflation adjustments to published metrics from the Massachusetts Library Association. He also said Silver Petrucelli and O&G remain finalizing cost estimates for construction and that appendices contain the teams extended analyses.
The reports principal recommendations were to retain the Russell Library in downtown to preserve placemaking benefits and to consider relocating City Hall to Main Street to increase accessibility, provide larger gathering spaces, and strengthen downtown synergies. Poland offered to prepare a shortened PowerPoint and a one- to two-page executive summary for the council.
Next procedural steps: Gohman will finalize the report and turn the final copy over to Ramona this week and is available to present to the full council; cost estimates from Silver Petrucelli and O&G were described as forthcoming.
