Just Build It Already: A Citizen series
In the first of the stories about good ideas that went nowhere, we check in with the library,
It’s amazing how an everyday occurrence can have you thinking about important municipal projects.
And it’s not just an occupational hazard from covering City Hall.
The last time you drove to the airport, were you not astonished that Ottawa still has not extended the O-Train to the terminal? When you drive by LeBreton Flats and see the lone — and not so attractive — condo building jutting out among the muddy fields, don’t you wonder what ever happened to the redevelopment plans for the prime location? Of course you do. And so when Calgary recently announced its impressive short-list of architects vying to design the western city’s new public library, we collectively sighed.
How is it possible that Canada’s capital is not be joining that ever-lengthening list of cities — from Halifax to Surrey, B.C. — that can boast a reimagined central library?
Ottawa came so very close to committing to a new downtown public library in 2008. But when the land deal fell through, the wind fell out of the sails of the project, at both the official and grassroots levels. For all intents and purposes, the dream of a proper downtown library is dead. Right? Not so fast, says Jan Harder. “Just because we’re not talking about it, it doesn’t mean nothing is happening,” says the Barrhaven councillor and chair of the library board.
Indeed, Harder — a dedicated library promoter who is an executive member of the North Americawide Urban Libraries Council and is currently running for president of the Canadian Library Association — insists the downtown library will be back on the public agenda this fall.
That’s when two vital reports are due. One will be the results of the Imagine campaign conducted this spring that collected more than 2,800 ideas from 27,000 respondents about what they’d like to see in their ideal library of the future.
Around the same time, Ottawa’s library board will be making public its months-long study into the feasibility of renovating the existing branch at Laurier and Metcalfe into something that, in Harder’s words, “is deserving of the City of Ottawa.”
Progress on the file has been so slow-going it’s no wonder people thought there was no future for the poor, inadequate central library. It was almost a year ago that we received the study on the physical state of the building, which found that about $6 million was needed to keep the structure going as is for the next 20 years.
But Harder says the status quo — even with an injected $6.2 million — just won’t cut it. According to the councillor, there are spots in the current central library branch where your smartphone doesn’t work. There aren’t enough computers, there aren’t enough meeting places, there’s a “half-baked auditorium.”
“It’s a dump,” Harder says bluntly. “But it’s a dump that is appreciated by 15,000 people a week.”
So the board won’t accept spending only the bare minimum on the building. But it also recognizes there’s no political will to purchase downtown property and build a new library from scratch.
Indeed, whenever Mayor Jim Watson is asked about it on Twitter, he immediately replies that there’s no money for that project (unlike the refurbishing of the baseball stadium).
And there’s a good reason to try to make the current library last until 2032: that’s the year when the lease for the entire block where the library is situated reverts to the city, returning to taxpayers a valuable asset.
So this fall, the board is expecting to hear back about what can be done to make the current space as welcoming and functional as possible — and what it will cost. Hamilton’s successful renovation of its central library came in at about $16 million, although fixing up Ottawa’s is expected to cost substantially more.
“It may well end up that it can’t be done, that it would cost too much for too little benefit,” says Harder.
If that ends up being the case, the library chair vows that she will fight for a Plan B, whatever that ends up being, whether it’s finding a new location, or perhaps working with a developer to locate the library in the podium level of a new downtown tower.
“Ottawa deserves to have a complete library in the downtown core and I’m going to work to make sure it will happen,” says Harder. Well, who knew? It’s possible that whatever proposal the library board entertains in the coming months might fall short of what many want to see in a downtown library: a landmark centre. Or, perhaps we are in store for some pleasant surprises.
But it’s fascinating what you find out when you ask.
And that led us in the Citizen’s City Hall bureau to ask, well, all sorts of things. Whatever happened to the idea of extending the O-Train south to Leitrim and the airport?
What’s the next step for figuring out how to get commercial traffic across the river and off King Edward Drive? What the heck is going on at LeBreton Flats, if anything?
And is anyone still considering extending Bank Street to connect it with the Ottawa River, surely one of the most welcomed ideas the National Capital Commission ever put forward?
Like a reinvigorated central library, these all seemed like sensible ideas for a city of Ottawa’s size and stature. So over the next few days, the Citizen’s David Reevely and Derek Spalding will update you on what’s happening — and not happening — with these ongoing issues.
And there couldn’t be a better time to re-examine these files. Because as summer officially comes to an end, the fall will signal the unofficial start of the 2014 municipal election campaign. And there’s no better time to get politicians talking about big ideas, about vision, about where we want to go as a city, than an election year.
Just listen to Jan Harder.