It will be up to the next city council to find a site for the city’s new central library after negotiations to buy a downtown property have failed, said Barrhaven Ward Coun. Jan Harder at Wednesday’s council meeting.
City council approved bookmarking $26 million last June to purchase a block of land bounded by Albert, Slater, Lyon and Bay streets after reviewing 12 other possible sites, including the Ottawa Technical High School site and the Lorne Building on Elgin Street.
A spokeswoman for the largest property owner of the 0.74 acre site, Alterna Savings, which owns 50,000 sq. feet of the block, said that the sale was not in the best interest of their members.
Other property owners on the block said they were surprised when the plan was announced last year and only found out about it through the media.
When the city announced the deal last year staff said that they had the power to expropriate the properties if they had to, but staff have since announced that they will look for another site for the central library.
The search for a suitable site began in 2001 when members of the Ottawa Public Library board approached the city with plans for a larger and more modern public library which was to be 345,000 sq. feet and stand between four and six storeys tall, which would dwarf the current central library on Metcalfe Street.
Despite the failed land negotiations, Harder insisted that the new library will be located downtown.