Walk down Greenwood Avenue this summer and you will hit orange barrels twice. Once at the Four Corners, where state crews have been rebuilding the intersection of Routes 16 and 113 since spring. And again at the library, where a second crew broke ground on a park redesign just a few days ago. Most people passing through assume it is one long construction zone. The projects are separate, funded by separate sources, and physically adjacent.
The projects’ relationship is documented in a 2023 environmental review record. It notes that a Town of Conway representative told state reviewers the library had retained its own landscape architect to rethink the greenspace north of the building in anticipation of the road work’s effects.
Two Projects, One Block
The New Hampshire Department of Transportation's Main Street Phase 2 work reconstructs the intersection in front of the Conway Public Library, running from the Four Corners to the junction of Route 16 and Route 113. After a schedule shift, town officials confirmed construction began Monday, April 20, 2026. That project is state infrastructure. It is not about the library at all. It exists to fix an intersection the town has wanted reconfigured for years.
But an intersection rebuild that close to a 125-year-old building does not stop at the curb. According to a 2023 environmental review record filed with NHDOT, a Town of Conway representative told state reviewers that the library had independently retained its own landscape architect specifically to rethink the greenspace north of the building, in anticipation of what the road work would do to it. In plain terms: the road project would affect the library’s greenspace, and the library retained a landscape architect to plan for that impact.
That put the two construction efforts on the same block within a few months of each other. The Conway Public Library held the groundbreaking for its Library Park Project earlier this month, an effort that started with volunteers more than four years ago and was designed, according to the library, to create a safer, more welcoming green space for children, families, and the rest of the community.
What Was Actually There Before
If your only memory of the space next to the library is a bench, some grass, and maybe a stray game of catch, that tracks. The park has functioned for years as what the library itself describes as an underused corner of the property, more of a leftover lawn than a destination. It has hosted a weekly outdoor yoga session with instructor Dixie Lea, five dollars suggested donation, bring your own mat, but not much else on a typical Tuesday.
The plan that has guided this redesign since 2024 calls for a different kind of space entirely. Concept plans presented at a public forum that October described a planting bumpout facing the street, a low shrubbery buffer, iron fencing, a paved walkway, a covered pavilion, and a play area for children. The landscape architecture firm behind the plans is Oak Point Associates, based in Biddeford, Maine, with Kerry Peiser serving as project manager. The committee steering the effort, chaired by Ginny Nossiff, also includes Kim Murdoch, Tessa Narducci, Glynis Knox, Shirley Young, Jeanne Wright, and library director Jeff Beavers.
Funding came together the way most small-town civic projects do here: slowly, and from more than one place. The Friends of the Conway Public Library secured a major grant from the Northern Border Regional Commission, supplemented by additional grants and private donations from residents. The library has said publicly it aimed to begin construction in 2026. It did.
The Part of the Deed Nobody Reads Out Loud
Here is the detail that makes this year's timing feel less like a scheduling accident and more like something coming full circle. The land next to the library was not informally called a park by locals over time. It was named that in the original 1901 deed.
When Sarah Jenks conveyed the library building and its grounds to the Town of Conway that year, in memory of her late husband Dr. Thomas L. Jenks, the deed specified the town would hold the property in perpetuity for the use and benefit of its inhabitants, as a Free Public Library Building and its adjoining grounds for a Library Park. That language, on file since 1901, is the reason the space has always technically been Library Park, not just the library's front yard.
"Hold in perpetuity for the use and benefit of its inhabitants."
That phrase is 125 years old this year. The building itself, a Classical Revival structure designed by architect Thomas Silloway, who also designed the Vermont State House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017. What is happening on the lawn beside it right now is the first real redesign that hundred-year-old parcel has seen.
The library is treating the anniversary as more than a footnote. This year it began selling a limited run of 125 metal library cards, priced at $125 each, each one valid for 125 years, meaning a card purchased today will still be honored at the library's 250th anniversary. It is a small, slightly eccentric detail, but it fits a town that just spent four years planning a park redesign around a sentence written in a 1901 deed.
What This Means for Your Next Few Months Downtown
If you live in Conway Village and drive or walk through the center of town regularly, here is the practical version of all of this.
- The Route 16/113 intersection by the library has been under active reconstruction since April 20, 2026, as part of Main Street Phase 2. Expect ongoing detours and reduced lanes near the Four Corners through the rest of the construction season.
- The Library Park Project broke ground earlier this month, meaning the green space next to the library building is now an active work site, not a place to sit with a book or catch a yoga class for the time being.
- The two projects are physically adjacent. The road work is expected to extend the library park toward the reconfigured intersection once both projects wrap, which means the finished park will likely look different in shape, not just in amenities, from the one that existed before this year.
- Once complete, the redesigned park is expected to include a paved walkway, a covered pavilion, a children's play area, and new plantings along the street-facing edge, replacing a lawn that had mostly gone unused outside of the weekly yoga session and the occasional dog walk.
None of this changes what the library does day to day. Storytimes, the Book Group, ESL classes, and the rest of its regular programming continue as usual. What changes, once the cones come down on both projects, is the block itself. A library that has anchored the center of Conway Village since before most of the town's current housing stock was built is finally getting a front yard that matches the promise made in its own deed.
If you're weighing what it's like to actually live within walking distance of downtown Conway, this is the kind of thing that matters more than a listing photo ever could. A rebuilt intersection and a redesigned public park do not show up on a spec sheet, but they shape how a neighborhood feels five years from now. Pinkham Real Estate keeps a close eye on projects like this one across the Mount Washington Valley because they tell you more about a town's direction than almost anything else. If you're curious what else is changing in Conway Village or want a local read on what a home near downtown actually offers day to day, reach out to our team to start your Mount Washington Valley search.