Nursery schools, businesses want to rent East Milton Library

By Johanna Seltz, Town Correspondent

Two nursery schools and a couple of local businesses are interested in moving into the closed East Milton Library, town officials said.

Selectmen discussed the future of the building at their Thursday night meeting and heard from several residents who were worried about parking and traffic problems that a new tenant might generate.

Among the groups interested in renting the building at 334 Edge Hill Road is the Campbell School, a preschool and kindergarten that has leased space at Temple Shalom since 2002.

The temple property went on the market this summer after Town Meeting refused to approve a variance that would have allowed the congregation to sell part of its residentially zoned property to a commercial developer. The temple had planned to raze the shul and build a smaller one at the same location, but now is looking for a new site in Milton.

Ann Campbell, executive director of the Campbell School, said she’d been assured she could stay through this school year. She said she was interested in moving to the East Milton Library building next year, and was looking at other possible places as well.

The school had been in East Milton in its previous incarnation as the East Milton Day Nursery School, which had been located in what was then the First Baptist Church.

“We want to stay in Milton,” Campbell said. “I don’t want to go anywhere else if I can possibly avoid it.”

Another person approached the town about renting the vacant library for a small Montessori pre-school, said Town Administrator Kevin Mearn.

He said several local businesses also had expressed interest, but had not gone public yet.

The selectmen agreed to put the subject on the agenda for their Sept. 16 meeting, Mearn said.

Johanna Seltz can be reached at seelenfam@verizon.net.