Details of Costs/Funding of Jones Library Expansion Remain Elusive
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Sponsors of the Jones Library Expansion project have announced that with the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement needed to complete the Section 106 review, the town is now free to collect $2.1 million in provisionally awarded federal grants. Town Manager Paul Bockelman has indicated that he hopes to sign a construction contract for the project before the end of the month.
However, critics of the project, including at least one consulting party to the Section 106 review, have argued that the town still has unmet obligations that must be addressed before the federal funds can be released and before a contract can be signed. They also point out that the total cost of the project is not yet known and is likely to escalate considerably in the face of intensifying economic turmoil that will most certainly raise the costs of construction substantially.
Federal Funds Not Yet Secured
While the town has indicated that it intends to file a request for release of $2.1 million of provisionally awarded grants from the National Endowment of Humanities (NEH) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the town has yet to fulfill all of its obligations for release of those funds and a portion of those funds have now been withdrawn by the Trump administration.
In order to claim the provisionally awarded federal funds the town must complete an Environmental Impact Analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act Review Process (NEPA). The town has effectively claimed an exemption from this review with the town manager certifying that “The Town of Amherst has determined that the project will have no significant impact on the human environment”. However, NEPA requires a public comment period of 30 days “when there is a considerable interest or controversy concerning the project” which the town has yet to complete. The town announced on March 28 that it had set a period for public comment of 15 days, expiring on April 12 and shortly afterwards, extended that to 30 days following multiple protests from the public. Special Capital Projects Coordinator Robert Peirent has indicated that any comments regarding the environmental report should be submitted to him at peirentr@amherstma.gov. See the town’s project web page for more information on the NEPA review.
Yesterday (4/3), multiple news sources reported that the Trump Administration has cancelled all NEH grant awards both active and pending, which means that fundraisers will need to raise another $1 million to cover those anticipated funds.
Yesterday (4/3), multiple news sources reported that the Trump Administration has cancelled all NEH grant awards both active and pending (see e.g. here and here) which means that fundraisers will need to raise another $1 million to cover those anticipated funds. As I note below and as is noted elsewhere (see also here, here and here) fundraising for the project has been flagging.
Total Costs of Project Remain Unknown, with Escalations Unquantified
Bockelman has stated that he intends to sign a contract before the end of April, before total costs of the project have been determined. For example, he acknowledges that the slate roofing must be completely rebid which will not occur until late spring or early summer. Signing a contract now would lock the town in to completing the project regardless of the final cost and leave responsibility for any costs escalation to fall to the town. To date, the town has avoided any consideration of how such an added financial burden would impact future town operating budgets (see also here).
Bockelman has insisted that the Jones Library Trustees are responsible for paying any overage above the town’s original commitment of $15.8 million. The Trustees concur but have produced little evidence that they can raise the remaining $7 million of their share to meet the estimated $46 million in construction costs, much less any additional cost escalations. The town will be borrowing the full cost of the project up front and any shortfall in fundraising will simply mean that the town will assume the full burden of that debt.
Bockelman has suggested that that he expects the project to cost no more than the previously estimated $46 million and that any unanticipated expenses should be covered by a $3.6M contingency, funds that are not meant to cover expenses that are known before a contract is signed but are reserved to accommodate unanticipated expenses that always arise in the course of construction. And such unexpected costs are all the more likely when renovating a 100 year old building on a very challenging site. However, here, the contingency has been identified as the source of funds for increases in costs for known changes to the plan (e.g. for slate roofing and additional exterior and interior work to comply with Section 106 stipulations).
Multiple subcontractors have indicated that they will no longer hold their bids (now six months old) and the plan is to offer those contracts to the next highest bidders until one agrees to sign. Whether the general contractor will maintain its six month old bid in the face of these conditions remains to be seen but the next highest and only other bidder for the general contract exceeded the low bid by $3 million. Given the widely-offered figures that tariffs will increase the cost of commercial construction projects by 3-12% (see e.g. here, here, and here), it is easy to imagine that escalations will quickly eat up the contingency. And those estimates predate President Trump’s April 2 announcement of new tariffs (see also here, here, here, and here) which has experts predicting a cataclysmic impact on the economy and which saw the stock market shed $2.4 trillion in value in its first day since the announcement.
There are several project items that need to be rebid, including the genuine slate roof, rental of swing space, conservation of the rare mahogany woodwork that the sponsors have promised to retain, and the moving of the Jones collections prior to commencing construction. While the project sponsors have offered estimates for some of these costs (some, very informal), these are not reliable substitutes for the actual contractor bids and while it appears that this work will be taken on as individual contracts separate from the general construction contract, it is not yet clear how they will impact the overall costs.
This has left several town councilors unsettled.
Town Councilors Voice Concern
At the town council meeting of March 24, Town Councilor Jennifer Taub (District 4) said, “The world has changed a great deal since we voted to extend the borrowing authorization in December of 2023, and it doesn’t feel credible that the contractors could hold their bids for going on six months. There was a recent New York Times article that said that currently, some contractors will only hold their bids for two weeks. And as we see retirement accounts losing their value almost daily, I question whether many of the pledges made over the last two or three years…how many people will be able to hold to those pledges at those amounts?”
“…if I took this contract to my boss when I was in the private sector, he would laugh at me and say, ‘Go back and do it again because this is a very risky, very risky contract.’ I really can’t emphasize what a risk it is to the town to do this. I understand the alternative is also risky, but this particular contract is way beyond a risk I’m comfortable with.”
Town Councilor Robert Hegner (District 5)
And Town Councilor Bob Hegner (District 5) raised concerns about the contracting process being used for the project. He said, “I don’t know a lot about building libraries, but I do know something about fixed price contracts, and if I took this contract to my boss when I was in the private sector, he would laugh at me and say, ‘Go back and do it again because this is a very risky, very risky contract.’ I really can’t emphasize what a risk it is to the town to do this. I understand the alternative is also risky, but this particular contract is way beyond a risk I’m comfortable with.”
Councilors Cathy Schoen (District 1), Pam Rooney (District 4) and Mandy Jo Hanneke (at large) also voiced concerns about burgeoning costs and how they would be met.
But Bockelman has insisted that at this point, the council has no role to play in determining the next steps (see also here) and has no options for further action other than to revoke the borrowing that they had previously approved. That could be done by a majority vote of the council. The council narrowly defeated a motion to abandon the project on June 3, 2024. That motion failed by a vote of 6-7.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that entering into a contact without knowing the total cost of the project, especially as we enter an economic crisis unprecedented in our lifetimes, is to embrace an enormous financial risk and obligation that no one in our government can assure we will be capable of meeting and with fiscal implications that could reverberate for a generation.
Being short the $1,000,000 NEH funds is just the layer of spoiled icing atop a moldering pile into which the Jones demolition/expansion project has decayed.
Other spoiled layers to consider:
The S&P500 has lost 12% over the past 6 months. Has the Jones Library endowment shrunk similarly? If so, that’s roughly another $1,000,000 the project is short.
And pledges from donors? On average, each prospective donor’s portfolio has likely shrunk by a similar percentage, so collectively another $1,000,000 short….
A million here, a million there: pretty soon it adds up to to real money!r
Thanks, Art. These are indeed unprecedented times with new, dire federal financial realities of canceled grants, program cuts, tariffs that will impact construction costs, and a declining stock market. Amherst’s own financial realities are challenged as evidenced by the library trustee’s $900,000 payment to the town in arrears, project donation shortfalls, and town budget shortfalls and cuts. It is unwise to ignore these red flags. Let’s remember that Amherst is blessed in having a large functional Jones Library and there’s still time to pursue a reasonable Plan B to renovate the Jones. At the moment, the entire country is unbalanced, but there is a way to restore balance to our town if Town Councilors can be persuaded to revoke the borrowing previously approved. Last year, this revocation was missed by a single vote. Write and urge your Town Councilors to take another vote and maybe this year, we will have a majority vote to do what’s best for all of us.
Thank you to Peggy Mathews -Nilsen. It is beyond imagining that one man can sign a contract for 10s of millions of unknown numbers of dollars that contracts for all of the tax payers in Amherst to some unknown amount of money that we will be obligated to pay for decades. I am horrified to find that I have , by living in Amherst, become on the hook to help pay for this enormous, as yet unknown, debt that we are incurring simply because of a group whose grandiose plans for our historic and beautiful library cannot be contained. I am not exactly sure how this happened but I want it to stop.
The Town cannot sign a contract with a general contractor when the scope of work has changed for that general contractor prior to a contract being signed. We received this information from the head of the Attorney General’s Bid Unit. The work of the general contractor has changed since the bids were received last year. The changes have been very publicly and grudgingly accepted by the Library.
Joe Cook has previously made the critical point above. (Comment, 4 April 2025, to INDY article, Jones Library Faces Hard Decisions, 21 Feb. 2025). I’m concerned that it’s not getting the traction it deserves.
Does this change in scope of work of the general contractor mean that the town must now bid the entire job — for the third time — before the town (Town Manager) can sign any contract for the Library’s demolition/expansion project?
If so, what will it cost for the Library’s architects to redraw the construction plans accordingly, and for the bidding process itself? Shouldn’t Town Council and the Library Trustees, not to mention the Amherst residents who will pay for it, know this now?
And why is it a resident knowledgeable about public construction contracting, instead of the Owner’s Project Manager, “a professional responsible for “providing independent and competent advice on all aspects of a building project,” (605 CMR 6.02), who raises this issue?
Change orders are strictly limited to changes that arise after the commencement of the contract. This is from the Attorney General’s Bid Unit. The principle is from a Mass. Supreme Court decision from well over 100 years ago.
The changes to the roofing and windows, which are required to be bid as separate “filed subbids”, require either a rebid of the subcontracts or these parts of the project can be bid as completely separate contracts.
The changes to the general contractor’s work, as originally described in the bid documents from six months ago, caused by the tardy reviews and agreements just now being done, cannot be made without a new general bid.
Violating procurement laws can negatively affect the Town’s bond
rating. Ask the Town’s outside auditor and bond counsel about that?
In today’s edition of “What will he go after next?,” we learn that the NEH is the target for evisceration and probably eventual elimination. Staff will be cut, and hundreds of grants have been terminated or rescinded. Is the Jones Library’s grant among them? Have the trustees received word of such a recision, or if they should receive it, will they keep this information to themselves? And in the miraculous event that this grant survives, what of the matching funds in private donations that were required? If I remember correctly, the grant required that for its $1 million, $4 million were to be raised in private funding. It was never clear to me whether this amount was in addition to the money to be raised by the Jones, or if it was included as part of the original figure that was needed, before costs escalated.
It’s a question that should be answered, though I doubt it will be.