By Jondrea Liddie
After 18 months of negotiations, plans to sell the City of Ottawa’s main library to developer Cadillac Fairview Corp. for $8 million have collapsed amid contradictory interpretations by the developer and by members of city council.
The developer says there never was an agreement. “Until you have a deal, you don’t have anything,” says Jon Hagan, executive vice-president of Cadillac Fairview Corp. “There had been discussions to see if an agreement could be reached, but nothing finalized.”
Somerset city Coun. Elisabeth Arnold agrees.
“They made an offer and council’s decision is either to accept or reject the offer. And the recommendation that committee made is to reject the offer,” says Arnold. “So no, there hasn’t been a deal signed. There’s been a series of offers and this is a revised offer that was brought forward.”
But Rideau city Coun. Richard Cannings has a different interpretation.
“They offered us $8 million and then they reduced that to $4 million after 18 months,” he says. “Now if they had just withdrawn, it might have been all right. But when they low-balled us, that’s seen in bad faith.”
Cannings says the city is now looking to sue Cadillac Fairview Corp. for $67,500 for “our costs.”
Arnold has a different view. “Basically what we would be doing is not suing the corporation,” she says. “But recovering the legal and developmental costs that we have expended to date.”
Last week city council approved a staff recommendation to reject the developer’s bid to purchase the main library. But city officials want to keep the decision confidential because it’s a property issue and is still a matter of litigation.
Cannings says the original offer proposed extra funding that couldn’t have come at a better time.
“They approached us. They made the offer,” he says. “We thought we’d died and gone to heaven. We are cash-strapped right now. We haven’t had any money in our capital budget for new projects for the last three or four years. So this was going to give us $8 million and it was great news.”
Under the proposed deal, the developer would have bought the library building for about $8 million. The city would lease it back for 20 years and operate the library. (An annual rent of $300,000 would be waived for the duration of the lease.) The developer would have the right to build an office tower on top of the library and would also lease a parking garage for 34 years.
“I feel helpless,” says Cannings of the failed agreement. “They made the decision, we didn’t make the decision. It was out of our control. I don’t know what made them change their mind but it is a big disappointment.”
Meanwhile, library patrons will continue to use the main branch at the corner of Metcalfe Street and Laurier Avenue, where access to the handicapped is limited and the building is poorly wired for the Internet.
Plans to build a new central library in the south end will be shelved until adequate funds become available.
Politicians say the main library remains a top priority as they explore other options to secure necessary funding.
“There’s no doubt that with a combination of the cuts from the provincial government to public libraries, as well as the general lack of municipal funding for libraries, that we have a lot of ground to make up,” says Arnold. “But it’s certainly something that the library board and the city and the new city council after the amalgamation will have to make a priority.”