Belmont Selectmen Pool Vote 'Fatal' to New Library Prospects

The unanimous vote by the Belmont Board of Selectmen Monday, April 8, to recommend a "pool-only" option for the future of the historic Underwood Pool has effectively caused a fatal blow to the $18.5 million proposal for a new Belmont Library, according to several who have been involved in the process. 

While Matthew Lowrie, the chairman of the Board of Library Trustees – which sited the new library on school department land across Concord Avenue from the present 45-year-old institution – hoped the vote "is not the death of the [new] library" proposal, a long-time member of the task force on finding and creating athletic fields said while technically possible, finding a replacement multi-sports field for the land to be taken by the new library is all but unattainable.

"This is like 'Groundhog Day' (the movie)," said Jim Fitzgerald, the town liaison for the Belmont Soccer Association who became the land-avaliability expert on the town task force which was dubbed the Combined Mega Awesome Group (C-MAG) by Lowrie.

"They keep looking for land day after day which is not there," said Fitzgerald. 

With a binder filled with maps, phots and charts, Fitzgerald indicated that despite years of "using tape measures and yard sticks," the task force and other groups supporting high school and recreation sports could only find two area where a field could be located; the former incinerator or the land adjacent to Belmont High School owned by Purecoat North, a metals plating factory.

"It was the wrong place for the library," said Fitzgerald. "And it's fatal." 

While all eyes turned to the town's former incinerator location on Upper Concord Avenue near the Lexington line, Fitzgerald said the only possible way the location could be used as a standard-sized replacement field is by convincing the Conservation Commission to retreat on the wetland boundaries surrounding site "which they never do." 

But Lowrie and the Trustees are moving forward with plans to come before Town Meeting in April or during a Special Town Meeting within the regular meeting in May to ask the 300 representatives to extend by six months a vote on accepting nearly $8 million in state funding to assist in building the new library, a 45,000 square foot, two-story building – compared to the 29,000 square feet in the present library – that consists of two sections; a front facing Concord Avenue and a narrower back section extending into what is now Belmont High School softball field.

"This vote leaves us in exactly the same place before the Underwood Pool options ... and we need to move forward on lining up another field likely the incinerator site," said Lowrie who said the Conservation Commission has reviewed the location which would allow a field.

"I think are best option is the incinerator site," he noted hopefully. 

Yet Selectmen Chairman Mark Paolillo, who was re-elected to the board last Tuesday, said gaining ownership of the site "is not going to happen soon" as legislation filed in January by State Rep. Dave Rogers is only now slowly moving through the legislature.

The Board of Selectmen voted 3-0 to recommend "Option 1" from a feasibility study by architect Tom Scarlata of Bargmann Hendrie + Archetype on the future of the Underwood Pool, the 101-year-old community swimming pool that has been determined to be on the verge of a major structural breakdown, which has outdated equipment and substandard facilities. 

Scarlata's presentation to the board was a retelling of his presentation on March 14 in which he presented three "options": one that renovated the pool and modernized the bathhouse for $4.2 million and two proposals that placed the pool on a plateau over the present location to allow for a 300 foot by 180 foot synthetic playing field to be located there, each with a $6 million price tag. 

As with the March meeting, the preferred plan dealt with just the pool – a 15,500 square feet pool with a shallow end with a shore entry, eight lap lanes and can handle 900 people – without an attached athletic field. 

In addition, the Belmont Historic Commission Chairman Michael Smith said the Commission said the pool-only approach "preserves the intent of the Underwood's original gift and the character of this important and beloved site ... ." 

Given an opportunity to speak before the Board before its vote, Lowrie said in a personal sense that he did not see the pool decision "as a library issue." 

"If I thought [an athletic field and pool option] was the only option to build it over there, I would have to think very hard about it, but I don't think that's the case," said Lowrie.

"So on we go," he said advocating for another meeting of the athletic fields task force which Paolillo said he was in favor of calling.