The following article appeared in the July 13 edition of the Guelph Tribune:
The city took a big step Wednesday towards building a new main library on either the city-owned Baker Street Parking Lot or on a Macdonell Street site owned by The Co-operators.
By a vote of 4-0, a city council committee passed a motion proposed by Mayor Karen Farbridge that calls for staff to closely examine these two preferred sites.
A library project “could play a really big role in reinvigorating” the downtown, said Farbridge, whose motion now goes to council for approval Monday.
Her motion directs city staff to prepare conceptual development scenarios and associated business cases, including full economic cost-benefit analysis, of the two sites. They’re the ones preferred by a library site selection committee chaired by local industrialist Robert Ireland, which studied the matter for two years.
The motion pertaining to the new main branch library also directs staff to:
* Consider integrated, mixed-use design and development scenarios for both sites that may include additional or reconfigured parking, residential, commercial and community uses for a new library building
* Consider opportunities for future expansion of library uses “within the development envelope”
* Consider site expansions into adjacent properties on both sites
* Consult with The Co-operators to determine conditions and opportunities for site utilization, development and associated costs with the Macdonell Street site.
The motion also calls for staff to report back to council on the process, timing and resources needed to do this work.
Farbridge’s motion was quickly approved by councillors Vicki Beard, June Hofland and Maggie Laidlaw, fellow members of the emergency services, community services and operations committee.
Norman McLeod, the city’s chief librarian, told the committee that while the Baker Street site was the site selection committee’s first choice, the Macdonell Street location is “almost as good a site.”
The site selection committee looked at 14 sites, including expansion at the current site on Norfolk Street.
However, expanding the current library building would only meet the library’s current needs, with no possibility of future expansion and without adequate parking, he said.
This would be “expensive and not a long-term solution,” said McLeod, who called expansion of the current library a “distant third possibility” among the three options put forward.
With a staff-recommended design for a parking garage on the south end of the Baker Street lot having been rejected by city council last fall, the library site selection committee is proposing that a two-story library be built there instead. It could have commercial or residential space on two floors above the library, and underground parking below, the committee’s final report says.
The committee’s second choice is the Co-operators Day Care property, with or without the nearby car wash property, the report says.
It’s the second site selection committee that has studied the issue of a bigger headquarters library in the downtown. In 2003, an earlier council headed by Farbridge endorsed the first committee’s choice of the old post office as the preferred site for a new main library, with an addition to be built at the rear of the Wyndham Street post office building.
However, the council headed by former mayor Kate Quarrie then decided not to buy the building from Canada Post. The post office ended up being bought by Wellington County instead and has been turned into county office space.
Quarrie later arranged for the second site selection committee chaired by Ireland, which also included lawyer David Smith, realtor Murray Taylor and others.
The possibility of expanding the library on Norfolk Street, which would have involved acquiring some additional adjacent land, was very closely examined by the site selection committee on direction from Quarrie’s council.