Cranbury expects to apply for state funding next spring to help pay for constructing a new public library, a township official announced on Nov. 14.
“We feel really good that we’re partnering well with the library and we’ve put together a really strong, compelling application that should get us full funding for the project from the state,” said Township Committeeman Daniel P. Mulligan III, who also sits on the library’s Board of Trustees. “We would apply tomorrow if we could.”
The state is creating grants available for library construction and other projects, funded through a $125-million-bond act that New Jersey voters approved in November 2017.
The New Jersey State Library said on its web site that it is administering the grant program “in coordination with affiliate Thomas Edison State University,” located in Trenton.
“Public libraries, namely municipal, county, joint and association libraries, will be eligible to apply for construction funds in a competitive grant program which we expect to be announced in spring 2019,” the site said.
Cranbury has said it has a “shovel-ready” project, with around $2.6 million raised, according to library director Marilynn G. Mullen.
About $300,000 of that total has been spent already on architectural design and site plan costs, she said on Nov.14.
One holdup is the state finalizing guidelines for the grant program.
“We don’t know the guidelines yet, so we just don’t know how soon they’ll take action once we apply,” Mulligan said. “It’s been intimated that it will be a rather quick process, but we just don’t know for sure because all the guidelines have not been rolled out.”
Mullen said she expects the request to the state would be for $1.5 million. But she said there is a balancing act in terms of how much to seek.
“We don’t want to ask too low because we don’t want to be caught with not quite enough,” she said. “But we don’t want to ask for a lot more than we need because we want to get the grant.”
“We feel like we’re going to be an excellent candidate to get matching funds,” Kirstie Venanzi, president of the library’s Board of Trustees, said on Nov.14.
Cranbury is looking to construct an 11,800-square-foot-library on vacant municipal land at the end of Park Place. It would replace the library’s current home since 1969, the Cranbury School.
“I know this is going to be a very exciting and wonderful thing for Cranbury,” Venanzi said. “It’s kind of the community center-library that we will need.”
Venanzi said that in a best case scenario, she would hope to see the project break ground next summer in time for the building to open in spring 2020.
Last year, the project was put out to bid, but bids came back for more than library officials had in funds available. But when the referendum passed in November 2017, it provided an opportunity to get the money Cranbury officials needed.
Yet officials have said there is no backup plan in case the state does not provide all or most of the money that the Township will seek.
“Nothing’s been firmed up as a plan B,” Mulligan said, “but there will be a plan B.”
Mullen said she expects that construction costs will increase since when the project went out to bid last year.
Also, officials have slightly redesigned the project to add some elements of the building that were not in an earlier, leaner version of the project.
Those include adding an additional window in the adult reading room, equipment to protect archival records, a patio at the back of the building and a small conference room—adding $110,000 in costs, Mullen said.
