The Saskatoon Public Library’s proposal for a new $154 million dollar downtown location met with some opposition at a city committee Monday afternoon. That’s the proposed cost by the Saskatoon Public Library to replace the outdated Frances Morrison location. Of that $154 million, the SPL is looking to borrow $87.5 million from the City of Saskatoon.
During the SPL’s business pitch to a city committee, Councillor Randy Donauer said he doesn’t want to be known as the council that lost the city’s AAA credit rating.
Multiple councillors put forward motions to receive more information from city administration and the library board including Councillor Darren Hill. The Ward 1 Councillor said he like more details in regards to variety of topics including details on the impact of the city’s debt level and future ability to borrow, mill rate impact for future years, impact to branch libraries and impact to services if any with a new central library.
The library said they would like the loan to be approved in the city’s 2020-2021 budget which is set to take place in November, although city administration did say all the information may not be able to come forward before then.
Councillor Troy Davies said once the city votes on the funding for the project, he’ll put forward a motion that the City matches every dollar raised by the public library through a loan of up to $40 million dollars. Davies says Halifax was able to build their new central library for $70 million dollars, this would allow Saskatoon to build the new central location with $80 million.
The current Frances Morrison Library was constructed in 1966 for a population of 100,000. Lisa Erickson, the Chair of the Library Board says the library is the busiest in the city and that it continues to see growth in the number of visitors.
City administration said they may be able to report back with a few of the details that councillors have asked for through various motions at next week’s council meeting.
The library is looking to fund the rest of the project through land sales, donations and reserve funds.
