Abington is planning to tear down and replace its flagship library building.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education announced more than $11 million in grants in April for libraries across the state. Abington Township received $749,750 “to plan and design a library facility that is sustainable, accessible, efficient and tailored to the needs of the community.”
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Town officials are now hard at work doing just that, Abington Township Public Library executive director Elizabeth Fitzgerald said.
The library has already put out a call for a fundraising consultant who will help raise the roughly $50 million total that township officials think they’ll need to replace the main library at 1030 Old York Road with something bigger. The consultant will be paid with private donations from the library’s endowment, Fitzgerald said.
Officials hope some of that money will come from state and federal sources, too. Fitzgerald asked state Sen. Art Haywood about possible funding through the Pennsylvania’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, according to minutes from the May library trustees meeting.
The 1954 building was previously a Best and Co. department store. Abington took over the property in the mid-1970s.
Maintaining the 72-year-old structure has “caused countless interruptions in services and building closures,” Fitzgerald wrote in a statement announcing the grant.
And the community has now outgrown it, the library director said. Earlier this month, the library hosted author Pam Jenoff at a Penn State building down the road in order to fit some 125 attendees.
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In addition to author events, the library hosts activities for kids, an adult literacy program, and a “library of things“ ranging from birding backpacks to electricity usage monitors.
Nearly 24,000 people attended over 800 library programs in 2025, Fitzgerald wrote in the grant announcement. “Abington Township needs a new, 21st century library building that can accommodate the needs of our community for generations to come.”
Next steps include hiring an architectural engineering firm using the state grant money, Fitzgerald said. The town expects to demolish the current structure sometime after September 2027 and rebuild on the same land.
In the meantime, officials will seek community input on the project “with surveys, focus groups, town halls, and one-on-one conversations,” Fitzgerald wrote.
“The planning is not in my hands,” she said. “This is the community’s library.”
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