LEBANON — The old West Lebanon Library building is in good hands with its new owner, said city Library Director Sean Fleming.

Wednesday night the city council voted to accept Lyme Properties LLC’s $141,000 bid for the 4,000-square-foot building on Main Street.

Lyme, a Hanover-based company, beat out a $140,000 bid from the Lebanon-based company Vasilios Georgitsis.

In its bid for the building, Lyme said it planned to rent out the first floor as office space and the second floor as residential apartments.

“I am delighted that the city council voted to accept our high bid for the former West Lebanon Library. We look forward to completing that acquisition and commencing construction so that we can complete the improvements for the Lyme Properties office for early next year,” David Clem, managing partner of Lyme Properties, said Thursday.

The city plans to hold an easement on the facade of the building, which Lyme plans to renovate in keeping with its historic character.

“I’m glad that it’s going to be preserved. He’s really going to take care to restore,” Fleming said of Clem. “Mr. Clem has a good reputation for taking older buildings and doing good things for them.”

Along with updating the building to current city safety codes, an “unsightly fire escape” on the side of the building is going to be removed and an elevator is to be added so that the building is ADA compliant.

Lyme is also the developer behind River Park, a mixed-use development in West Lebanon that got city approval late last year.

The West Lebanon Library was built in 1909 by residents who pooled their money together after the city received a $12,500 grant from Andrew Carnegie to build a library in the city proper.

The West Lebanon Library opened about three months before the Carnegie funded city library.

The library remained under the control of the West Lebanon Library Association until the late 1950s or early ’60s, when it was turned over to the city.

The city closed it when the Kilton Library opened across the street on July 2010.

Fleming said he is happy about the sale for two reasons: first, the Lyme Properties renovation of the building will go a long way for the current revitalization of Main Street in West Lebanon and, second, the $141,000 is to go toward paying down the Kilton Library building bond.

“I’m really thrilled to have him across the street as a neighbor too,” Fleming said of Clem.