New central library approved with $20 million knocked off price tag

Saskatoon City Council has approved Saskatoon Public Library’s (SPL) operations budget, along with the new central library for a smaller borrowing cost.

Councillor Darren Hill’s motion of allowing SPL to borrow $67.5 million was carried by a vote of 6-5 after a long deliberation by councillors, administration, and representatives from SPL. The original ask from SPL for borrowing from the city was $87.5 million for the capital project.

This means the operating budget will decrease to $132.9 million, down from the original $152.9 million ask.

Coun. Cynthia Block, Sarina Gersher, Hilary Gough, Mairin Loewen, Mayor Charlie Clark, and Hill voted for, while Coun. Troy Davies, Randy Donauer, Bev Dubois, Ann Iwanchuk, and Zach Jeffries voted against.

All Councillors did agree on one thing during day one of Saskatoon’s budget deliberations:

There is a need for a new central library.

What they struggled to find common ground on was the monetary borrowing ask by SPL.

Coun. Gough was looking for the original ask by SPL of $87.5 million for the project, while Hill countered with his motion
that ultimately was passed.

Gough’s original motion was defeated by a vote of 9-2, with Coun. Gersher and Gough voting in favour.

Other Councillor’s also got in on their take with how much the city should be asking for.

Coun. Loewen had a number of $76.3 million for the borrowing ask, Coun. Jeffries also countered with $63.5 million.

Coun. Davies, who used Halifax’s library as an example, said “you can build a pretty nice building for a lesser amount of dollars,” and asked for $35 million for the borrowing ask for SPL’s new library.

Mayor Clark told 650 CKOM it was a challenging vote Monday for their council. The challenge was the library needing to move on and go to the next phase of design, but there isn’t a final cost or design for the new build.

The authority that council had was to give SPL a funding envelope to operate from, Clark said.

“Council decided to say ‘we want you to move ahead with the project, but we’re going to reduce that funding envelope to ($67.5 million dollars)’, so that we have the flexibility to deal with many of the other Capital Projects that we will know are going to be on the horizon.”

He said the final number came out to be a compromise they had to make for the library to take the reduced amount, along with their ability to work with it.

“It was trying to find the right balance there. The library has the potential to do tremendous things for the downtown, tremendous things for the city, as we’ve seen in many other cities.”

‘We’re ecstatic,’ SPL ready to move on from uncertainty from new project

When the decision was made, instead of dwelling on the $20 million cut, SPL representatives were happy to get a definitive answer from council.

SPL Board Chair Lisa Erickson said they were ‘ecstatic’ to finally get the support.

“Council sees that we need a new library in Saskatoon. I’m heartened to know that we have their support to proceed, and we’re committed to continuing to work with them on this project.”

Moving forward, Erickson said her board will reconvene, assess the situation, and and think about the implications of their borrowing reduction.

Erickson said Saskatoon will be getting the library they deserve.

“The central library we’ve known we’ve needed in Saskatoon for 20 years will become a reality. We hope to deliver that project in 2026 for Saskatoon.”

The reaction from @stoonlibrary, following tonight’s decision: #yxe #yxecc pic.twitter.com/wDnDfUAH1b

— brady lang (@BradyLangSK) November 26, 2019