Baker Street library concepts

Posted by Laura

Three preliminary concepts were presented for the new central library tonight. All proposals feature an underground public parking garage and a new street bisecting the site to connect Wyndham to Baker. The new street would require the city to purchase a residential-commercial property north of the old post office on Wyndham Street.

The concepts allow for phased development.

Here are the concepts:

Library in the park

• Four-storey library nestled in a 0.6-acre park
• No street frontage
• One residential building with 110 to 130 units
• Commercial potential in library, condos

Library in the middle

• Four-storey library at the centre of the Baker Street site
• Library has frontage onto a new street proposed to bisect the site
• Half-acre park
• Two residential buildings with 140 to 160 units in total
• Commercial potential in library, condos

Library on Wyndham

• Four-storey library has frontage onto Wyndham Street
• City has to acquire four properties north of the old post office on Wyndham, up to and including the large cowboy bar
• Residential building behind the library with a small courtyard
• 0.4-acre park
• A second residential building with a private two-level parking garage
• 200 to 230 residential units on site
• Commercial potential in library, condos

Comments

[Edward Pickersgill]

:-) sounds like something I was yammering about some time ago... now the question might be why did some people who might profit from expropriation have prior knowledge (had seen conceptual drawings more than two years ago)...

Additionally one might ask how tall a residential building with that many apartments might be because it will be dead centre in the sight lines to the Church of Our Lady when coming down Eramosa Road -- and how would that proposed height impact on the developer who has been trying to get approval for a 9 or 10 storey apartment building on the vacant lot beside the Thomas Video location?

[Linda]

Who cares about the sight line? The downtown square is named for St. George's and you can't see it very well either. Does protecting a sight line to a church actually trump legislation such as places to grow?

[Kevin Ames]

Any costing on any of the proposals?

[Magda]

Urban Strategies, the company the city hired to do some of the preliminary design work, says a new library would cost at least $15 million ( http://news.guelphmercury.com/article/339769 ).

I'm not sure whether cost differences for each were discussed last night -- I'll find out and report back.

In any case, costing would be preliminary because the city would go to the private sector for actual proposals. Right now, it's just the city figuring out parameters for the private sector to work with.

[Magda]

Update: there's no word on how much each option would cost. Watch this space for more info, coming soon.

[Edward Pickersgill]

Following up on rumours the City may purchase and demolish buildings on Wyndham St. N. related to redevelopment of the Baker Street parking lot: The Wellington & Guelph Housing Committee was informed at its October 16th meeting that the matter would be on the agenda of the November 15th meeting of the "Governance and Economic Development Committee of the City of Guelph". The Housing Committee attempt to make a presentation at that meeting resulted in our being informed the matter would not be going through that committee (or any other committee) but that a report will be going straight to Council.

Additionally the Housing Committee's representative was informed that any such purchase or expropriation would be 2 or 3 years down the road and that no decision has been made on this at all yet.

[Magda]

Thanks for that information, Ed. I'll find out when it's coming to council.

Just to clarify, though, it's not a rumour that the city may demolish properties on Wyndham to make room for the library -- that idea is included in one of the concepts for the new library. Read more on that here: http://news.guelphmercury.com/article/339769

[Edward Pickersgill]

:-) not to split hairs but it is rumour in the sense that the next report to Council will be the pros and cons of each of the three main proposals. Thus for the property owners in question it qualifies as rumour because nobody has given them conditional offers of purchase (conditional on the City making up its mind). In the meantime there are rumours which will be making it difficult for the property owners to sign up long term stable commercial tenants.

There are hierarchies of rumours but if city council officially receives a report weighting the three proposals then the property owners will begin to have a case against the city for lost rent on the commercial components. In my opinion.