While a new library here may not happen for years to come, the 20 or so people on hand for a meeting last Thursday night upstairs at the museum clearly recognized a larger building would be a welcome—and ultimately necessary—addition to the community.
Those opinions started surfacing almost immediately after John Stephenson, of the Thunder Bay-based architectural firm of Kuch, Stephenson, Gibson and Malo, unveiled the two possible plans—one for a renovated version of the current library and the other for a new building—to garner public input.
“The thing I hadn’t thought about was shutting down [for eight months to a year] during renovations and we just can’t do that,” said Jean Boileau, president of the “Friends of the Library.”
“Not living in a city, we’d have nowhere else to go. And what would happen to the staff. . . .?” she added.
Boileau noted space is a pressing concern for library staff and since an expanded library at its current Church Street site is out of the question, a new one is the right thing to do in a town that sometimes tends to spend too much on temporarily fixing things instead of building them anew.
“Having a sports centre, a hospital, a theatre, why not have a new library? We’re a forward-thinking town, I believe we can do it,” she remarked, adding this first meeting only marked “the very, very, very beginning” of a journey.
Agreeing a new building would be ideal, library board member Mark Kowalchuk said the best option was seeing it located where the old Fort Frances High School now stands on First Street East.
“I think to hold on to the old library, the space remains somewhat limited,” he said. “With the congested parking during the day, someone who’s never been there might put off going there until the evening, or never go at all.
“With the larger building [in the case of expansion] and the clinic vying for parking space, it makes it worse,” added Kowalchuk. “The high school property provides a nicer spread for parking.”
He also added the one-level design “seems to have a lot of merit,” and should prove to be staff- and energy-efficient.
“[This meeting] showed [chief librarian] Margaret [Sedgwick] and the rest of the staff that the public really supports this. It’s encouraging,” said Andrea Avis, a librarian in the Children’s Department.
“One of the really important points is how we’ve seated ourselves into the hearts of the community. They really trust Margaret’s direction of where the library’s future might lie,” Avis added.
She noted as a children’s librarian, a designated area for children’s programming (as opposed to having it in a general area that sometimes can contain distractions) would be beneficial as parents have come to utilize these more and more over recent years.
Stephenson will meet with the library board in three-four weeks for further discussion. Then a second public meeting will be held later this year, at which time he will come forward with a final draft report as to the feasibility of building a new library here.
Stephenson outlined the plans at last Thursday’s meeting, which he stressed are still subject to change.
The proposed work to the existing library would include an expansion spanning 70 feet out from the rear of the east half of the building (which originally was built in 1898).
It also would feature changes like improved access, an elevator, and moving the children’s department to the upper level and the adult section downstairs.
This option would cost roughly $2,495,610, although this was merely a “ball park figure” used for comparative purposes, admitted Stephenson.
The latter option—a new single-storey library—would be based on an “open” concept, with library staff working from one location in the centre of the building, and surrounded by the adult non-fiction, fiction, and children’s departments (as well as reading and study areas, a nursery school, and a multi-purpose room, among other features).
Its price tag was estimated at $3,253,600.
While the pros and cons of the five sites eyed for a new library—also including behind the Fort Frances Courthouse, at Alexander MacKenzie School, at Sixth Street School, and near the Memorial Sports Centre—were weighed, ultimately the old Fort High property was picked as the best.
Not only is it centrally located, but a new library and parking lot likely would take up only between one-third and one-half the total property. And the area not taken up by the library could be developed into public “green space,” as per the designs of the “Re-Inventing Fort Frances” project.
The traffic flow at Alexander MacKenzie made people think twice about that location while the north-end location of Sixth Street School contradicted the library’s traditional role as a centrally-located community institution.
Building a new library on property near the Memorial Sports Centre was ruled out because that area already has much activity going on, while the view of the mill and the jail kept the property behind the courthouse from being a viable option.
Stephenson made it clear the library’s need for more space was a problem that needed to be addressed.
Based on the number of resident and non-resident borrowers using the library and the size of the community, he noted the library should be at least 14,783 sq. ft. in area as opposed to its current size (9,516 sq. ft.)
He added the problem isn’t that the library has too big a collection of books, CDs, videos, DVDs, and CD ROMs, but that it is just too small.
As well, the growth of the collection would be less of a concern in the future if the library is expanded as the nature of the collection is changing, particularly with the reference section (encyclopedias, etc.) being converted to a much less bulky CD-form.
Stephenson began the feasibility study last fall.
The library building initially was constructed in 1898, with an expansion completed in 1967.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
