Forest Street Parking Lot Being Considered as Possible New Downtown Library Location

The Board of Directors voted Tuesday to allow the town's library advisory commission to spend $60,000 of its own funds to study "public needs and desires for a new library building." 

The location, according to Library Director Doug McDonough, would be the town owned parking lot at the intersection of Forest and Main streets. The money would come from the library's Levi Drake Fund, which has about $90,000 in it and was not raised through taxpayers money. 

Voters rejected a proposed $12.5 million expansion of the Mary Cheney Library in November of 2012, but McDonough said there were multiple reasons why voters might have voted against that project, including everything from a desire to protect Center Memorial Park to fears from library supporters that the proposal was not sufficient enough for the town's needs. 

Part of the $60,000 expenditure would be to conduct a "professional survey" which McDonough said would give the town a better idea why the referendum failed and what Manchester residents were looking for in a new library. 

McDonough called the current Mary Cheney Library, which was built in 1937 and last expanded in 1961, "woefully inadequate" for the town's needs. 

"The reasons for people voting against it are all over the place, and that's what the survey would hopefully determine," McDonough said. 
McDonough said the town would commission an "impartial organization" to conduct the study, but that none had been selected yet.