LEBANON — A $1.7 million renovation of the Lebanon Public Library is on track to start next month after city officials approved a slate of upgrades to the 111-year-old building that overlooks Colburn Park.

Over the next four to six months, the downtown library will get new meeting spaces, an expanded teen room and a central staircase aimed at making it easier to access the building’s three floors.

Construction also will result in several unseen upgrades, including a new energy-efficient heat pump system that will replace the library’s dependence on fuel oil for heat.

“Mainly, we hope the building will be more functional and attractive,” Francis Oscadal, chairman of the Lebanon Library Trustees, said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Oscadal added that the renovation will not only serve patrons but also maintain the building’s historic architecture. Completed in 1909, it’s one of New Hampshire’s nine libraries funded by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie that are still operating.

The renovation project was given the go-ahead last week when the City Council voted unanimously to include it in Lebanon’s 2021 capital improvements budget.

The city plans to take out $1.7 million in bonds to fund the project, part of which is expected to be offset by private donations raised by the Lebanon Public Libraries Foundation.

That nonprofit has so far raised $177,000 toward a goal of $300,000, according to the group’s president, Pat Hayes.

Hayes, a former Lebanon mayor, said volunteers have been busy soliciting donations from businesses and past supporters of the Kilton Public Library, which was completed in 2010 with the help of private backers. He said there’s a “lot of enthusiasm” to upgrade the downtown library, which was last expanded in the 1980s.

“Everybody’s has just been super generous,” Hayes said. “It’s so surprising in this time of economic turmoil that people are still thinking of their community and thinking of these iconic cultural establishments.”

Plans to renovate the downtown library date back to the Kilton’s opening, which saw much of the library system’s offices move to West Lebanon.

Library officials also heard from patrons who complained that the building didn’t have enough bathrooms, had too few meeting spaces and was often difficult to navigate.

Sean Fleming, director of the Lebanon Public Libraries, said the old offices will be repurposed to make space for new meeting and study rooms, popular features of the newer West Lebanon library.

Construction, he said, also will expand the teen room, which sees an average of 20 to 30 children frequent the cramped upstairs space during normal times.

To make the building more user-friendly, a central stairway will be added to replace outdated staircases that seniors and those with disabilities often have trouble on, Fleming said.

Cosmetic upgrades — such as new carpeting, tiling shelving and furniture — also will be added, according to the project’s funding request.

The building’s exterior will change little aside from an expansion of the landing on the front stairs, the installation of new handrails and lighting improvements. Fleming said those changes, combined with those indoors, will make the building compliant with the American with Disabilities Act. (The library already has an elevator).

“Right now, the way the door opens, you can be forced to step back if somebody’s coming out of the building and you’re trying to get in,” he said, adding people have fallen backward and required medical attention in the past.

Fleming said library staff will begin boxing up books and preparing for the renovation on Jan 4. Construction, he said, is expected to begin in mid-January.

The building itself is currently only operating online and through curbside pickup services because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.