Thunder Bay Public Library’s management is hoping that city council will approve the renewal of the lease agreement between Thunder Bay Public Library and County Fair Plaza.
If passed, the new terms will give the library an additional 20 per cent, or just under 900 square feet, of floor space within the mall and extend the current rental rate for a longer period.
The expansion will be added on to the current branch on a permanent basis, with a larger 4,700-square-foot space across the hall from the branch to be available to the library for occasional use while it remains unoccupied.
Richard Togman, chief executive officer of the Thunder Bay Public Library, called the plan “quite the revolution” in terms of library services in the County Fair area, which will allow them to do things that they “couldn’t even imagine” before.
“We’re embracing the mandate set down before us by city council, and when our lease was coming due at County Fair Plaza, we dove in head first,” he said.
“If this is the model that the community wants, let’s not just do the status quo, let’s do it bigger and better. We got a great deal from the landlord, effectively keeping prices at the same rate as they are right now, but getting more space.”
He says this means growing the library’s core leased area at the mall and adding on a major programming room space, which is something that the County Fair branch never had before.
“We were really limited in what we could do at that branch, and how we could serve the families of that neighbourhood,” he said. “In addition to the 20-per cent growth in our core branch area, the landlords are allowing us to use some of the other currently vacant storefronts for overflow programming.”
Togman says the landlord, which is a numbered company based out of Toronto, has done a great deal of repair work on the roof, flooring and foundation.
“We’ve gotten a lot of assurances from the landlord that they’re continuing to invest in the mall and we’ve also gotten commitments from the landlord to do a total renovation of the public bathroom spaces, and some smaller things,” he said.
“They are also allowing us more space on the exterior of the building to better advertise and raise public awareness of the branch within the mall. So there are a lot of ancillary benefits that we’ve been able to negotiate into the lease.”
Togman added that the library branch presence will be maintained there for years to come, if council approves, which means the landlord will continue to invest and revitalize the mall to attract more tenants and businesses to the interior spaces.
He said part of their plan for the County Park branch is integrated into the whole system approach.
“We have enough money to do the bare bones right now, and we can turn that extra space we’re getting into a basic usable space, but we know that’s not the community standard,” he said.
“Libraries need to be warm and welcoming. They need to be exciting for kids. They need to have the right amenities for seniors.”
As part of the library’s system-wide upgrades, Togman says the fundraising aspect is “really critical” and a new campaign is about to be started.
Meanwhile, everything hinges on council’s decision on Monday of next week.
“Once they consent to the lease, then we can sign and bind with the landlords, and then within a few months, the landlord will be building the wall separation to make that extra space truly part of the library,” he said.
A call will be going out for quotes and requests for proposals this summer to knock down the wall, do the upgrades on the space, and then start their fundraising for the improvements.
Togman said if all goes according to plan, the community will see the differences coming in the fall and definitely over the winter, and by the end of this year, that space will be everything that the community expects it to be.
