In November 1995, Wakefield's Town Meeting approved a $5 million renovation to the Beebe Library, with $3.2 million to be funded by the town and $1.8 million from a construction grant from the Mass. Board of Library Commissioners. The product of several years of evaluation and planning, the renovation project had numerous goals, including making the building accessible to the disabled, increasing the size of the Youth Room, adding a separate Young Adults area, increasing space for collections, upgrading utility systems, and introducing state-of-the-art library technology. The challenge was to achieve these goals in the existing structure while retaining the beauty of the historic portion of the building.

The Boston architectural firm of Childs Bertman and Tsekares was hired to redesign the building and work with the Library Building Committee and library staff to bring the goals of the building program to fruition. Castagna, Inc. was hired as the general contractor, and the entire project was overseen by the project management firm, the Carlisle Consulting Group.

Before construction could begin in October 1996, the entire library had to vacate the Main Street site and move to temporary quarters at the Lakeside Office Park. These temporary offices were generously provided at no charge to the town by the Savings Bank of Wakefield for the duration of the construction period. The move took three weeks and the "Library at Lakeside" reopened to the public the second week in October, 1996. Construction on the Main Street building was substantially completed in January 1998, and the library moved back to its beautifully renovated historic building during the month of February. The rededication festivities took place on Sunday, March 15th, 1998, and the next day the library reopened to the public.

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