Despite a push last year by Ottawa Public Library Board members and councillors to build the new main library and the city’s new central archives in one centralized location, the two will be constructed apart — with work to begin this month on the archives building in Nepean’s Centrepointe area.
There have been talks at Ottawa council for more than a year about a planned central archives building to preserve the city’s historic documents, which are currently being held in five different facilities.
Officials believe the city’s archival treasures are at risk of damage from repeated handling during transportation and improper storage conditions.
The only location that has an environmentally controlled document storage area is the small vault at the current, temporary archives facility 111 Sussex, the former Ottawa city hall. The federal government, which now owns that building, has informed the city the lease of the archives space will not be renewed beyond Dec. 30, 2010.
In February 2007, councillors met to discuss plans to build a new central archives site after being handed a timeline from city staff for relocating the facility. At the meeting, councillors working on the project for Ottawa’s proposed new main library urged the archives relocation committee to consider amalgamating the archives with the new library. Council decided to allow six months for consideration to be given to this proposal, but when committee members reassembled, the decision was made to build the two projects as separate entities.
It was revealed last month by Centretown News that the new new library would stay downtown. City officials, who have proposed a budget of $25 million to purchase a downtown property, are not revealing the precise location of the planned library because they fear it would drive up the price of the targeted property.
Meanwhile, a recent library board report confirmed that the new central archives and “library materials centre” would be build on Tallwood Drive, near the former Nepean City Hall.
“We were given an absolute deadline for moving the location of the archives,” says Kanata South Coun. Peggy Feltmate, who is also a member of the library board.
“We had to be out of the Sussex location by the end of 2010, and the central library project still does not even have a budget allocation. Therefore, we couldn’t wait,” she says. “At this point, the decision made best reflects what the timeline allowed.”
The archives is scheduled to open at the city-owned Centrepointe site in the fall of 2010.
The budget for the archives is $38.6 million, $20 million of which the province has agreed to contribute. The facility will be 81,363 square feet, and local architect Barry Hobin has been chosen to design the building.
Elaine Condos, a division manager with the Ottawa Public Library, says the cost was a big issue in splitting up the two institutions, along with the limited timeframe for building the archives.
“One of the concerns with having (the library and the archives) in one centralized location is that land downtown is very expensive,” she says.
During the planning process, city and library staff developed five “synergy options,” ranging from separate entities at separate sites to a fully integrated main library and central archives at a single downtown location.
“I think the archives need to be in proper space, and this is the opportunity to do it with a location that is convenient and cost-efficient,” says Condos.
“The archives staff is projecting that once (archival materials) are in proper, accessible space, far more people will come in to use the facilities.”
City official Colleen Hendrick, chair of the central archives relocation committee, says that while it would have made apparent sense to build the archives downtown in unison with the new library, the two buildings will act as completely different facilities, and it is not necessary to have them located together.
The library elements to be located at the new archives building “are not part of the public functions of the central library, and this portion of the facility will not be open to the public,” she says.
Hendrick notes that aside from saving money by building the centre in the west end instead of downtown, there will be a lot more accessible public parking on-site, as well as proximity to the transitway and Algonquin College.
“The archives has a different mandate from the public library, so it does not need to be located in the downtown area.”