By Melanie Brooks
Delays in the negotiations for the sale of the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library at 120 Metcalfe St. are being blamed on the complexity of the proposed sale.
Negotiations for the sale began more than a year and a half ago between the library board, city council and Cadillac Fairview Corporation, a Toronto-based real estate giant.
All specific terms of the potential deal are confidential at this point, but the three parties say they all have their own priorities.
Barbara Clubb, chief librarian of the Ottawa Public Library, says that since there were no plans to sell the 25-year-old building until the company made the offer, there’s no rush on the library’s part now.
But she says if the sale does go through, the library board plans to use the money to build a new library in the south end, since there isn’t a facility there now and one is definitely needed.
Jon Hagan, executive vice-president for Cadillac Fairview Corporation, says the company approached the library board with the purchase proposal because it already owns the adjacent building.
He says Cadillac Fairview isn’t interested in running the library and will wait until the best deal presents itself.
“It’s not something urgent for us, so we won’t get into a deal unless it’s right for us,” he says. “There’s no normal time for a deal when you’re dealing with a government and an existing operation. It makes things more complicated.”
The city currently owns the building, and the library board, of which Clubb is treasurer, is in charge of its operation.
Mayor Jim Watson, the city representative on the board, says the board members expected the process to take a long time when it began.
He adds one of the major obstacles in the deal is that if the sale goes through, the city would no longer own the building. That means any decisions dealing with the building, such as renovations or even relocation of the branch, would have to be approved by the building owners.
“We’d be a tenant, but this is for the main branch,” he says. “We’d have to tie ourselves to a lease. If we were ever to build a new (building), we’d have to time it to that lease.”
The process has been slowed even further since meetings between the groups are only once a month, says Watson.
But a confidential meeting March 28 between the library board and municipal officials to discuss the deal could make things clearer, says Clubb. She says she can’t comment further until then.
“We won’t know more until after the March 28 meeting,” she says, adding that it’s still a regular monthly meeting. “I hope something will be resolved soon.”
Even if a deal is made, it will have to be approved by the library board, then city council, and then the region’s transition team.
“There are a number of hurdles,” says Watson. “This was not expected to be completed quickly.”
David Lees, Ottawa vice-president of real estate company J.J. Barnicke Ltd., says the average time for a large real estate deal is three or four months. He says the longest negotiations he remembers took two years, but it’s rare for things to take that long.
“A year and a half is a long time, but I suppose they have a lot of things to consider,” he says.