Last week, residents of Springfield’s Mason Square neighborhood were treated to a long-overdue, and much welcomed, sight: a moving truck parked outside of 765 State St.
The truck was there to move the Springfield Urban League from the building, which it bought more than seven years ago, to its new home on the campus of Springfield Technical Community College. That, in turn, clears the way for the restoration of the neighborhood’s branch library, which had been reduced to a minimal “reading room” status after the sale.
The 2003 sale, which was arranged between the Urban League and the Springfield Library & Museums Association (the private group that ran the city’s library system at the time), was a controversial deal, made without public input or notice. And it was a quite a deal for the Urban League, which paid just $700,000 for a building that had just undergone $1.2 million in renovations—about half of which was funded by taxpayers, through city bonds. (The city also gave significant financial support to the SLMA for the libraries and museums at the Quadrangle. Not long after the Mason Square sale, the City Council, in response to a spirited grassroots campaign, voted to take control of the libraries, which are now a city department.)
The Springfield City Council voted in August of 2009 to take 765 State St. by eminent domain, after a lengthy effort to find a new home for the library failed to identify a workable site. The Springfield Library Foundation—a private group that controls a trust fund established by the late Annie Curran to support library services in Mason Square—agreed to pay the Urban League a fair-market price for the building, as well as cover the agency’s moving costs.
Even then, the Urban League—whose president, Henry Thomas, protested the taking, even suggesting the agency would legally fight it—took its sweet time vacating the building, in the process repeatedly delaying plans for the library’s re-opening. That foot-dragging prompted some city councilors to move toward issuing an eviction notice to force out the Urban League. After delaying an earlier eviction vote last month, based on reassurances that the agency would be out of the building by Nov. 15, the Council had scheduled a special meeting for Nov. 16, with the intent of voting on the eviction if that deadline hadn’t been met. That meeting was cancelled on the 15th, in light of news that the Urban League had, indeed, moved out.
After so many delays and false starts, some observers needed firm evidence that the agency was really, truly out of the building. After receiving notice that the eviction-vote meeting had been cancelled, City Councilor Tim Rooke sent a list of questions to Council President Jose Tosado and City Solicitor Ed Pikula: Had City Hall confirmed that 765 State St. was “100 percent vacated”? Did the city have full legal possession of the building? And could Rooke have the keys to the building? (He later explained that he’d hoped to let Ruth Loving—a revered, 96-year-old community activist who’s been a fierce advocate for the library’s return—have the honor of being the first person to enter the now-reclaimed library.)
The city does, indeed, now have full legal possession of the building, Pikula replied. (Still to be settled are the “use and occupancy” fees owed the city by the Urban League for its continued use of the building after the eminent domain vote.)
Now begins the exciting countdown to the library’s return. City Library Director Molly Fogarty has set a tentative re-opening date of Jan. 26, with a grand opening ceremony on Feb. 24.
