Barrie Public Library officials will ask council for $75,000 to fund the design, layout, community consultations and demographic analysis for a new library branch in the city’s northwest corner.
“This model does work, especially to fill gaps in underserved and fully established areas of the city,” said Lauren Jessop, the library’s chief executive officer. “It has been rewarding over the last two years to see the Holly community embrace a small community library and it has quickly become a gathering space for all ages, with family and adult programming consistently growing in attendance.”
The funding request will be made during Wednesday night’s budget presentations for the city’s service partners, which includes the library.
Officials say they would also like to prepare a business plan for a northwest library branch.
Library officials say there are fewer library members in the city’s northwest, likely due to the poor proximity to other library branches.
A community library would provide opportunities for literacy support, programming for all ages, computers and WiFi — along with convenient access to books, movies and other items for learning and leisure. There could also be community space for work, study and social meetings.
There are 26,000 residents living in this area of the city, and 5,000 are youth, age 19 or younger. There are also 12 public and private schools in the area.
Jessop said these numbers come from a three-kilometre radius around the Letitia Heights area.
“We would also like to take some time to conduct community consultation with the residents of Ward 5 and surrounding areas to get a sense of broader community needs before we make any firm decisions,” Jessop said of the location. “We are looking at the broader Letitia Heights area.”
Estimated expenses for a northwest branch include $957,000 in annual operating costs, $650,000 for furniture, shelving and equipment, and $240,000 for the opening day collection.
City councillors requested in December that library officials prepare a business case concerning an additional boutique or small library space — similar to the Holly Community Library location on Essa Road — in northwest Barrie and provide the results before 2025 budget talks conclude.
“When a neighbourhood is already established, there can be fewer vacant properties to build a stand-alone branch on,” Jessop said. “Repurposing existing buildings is sometimes the only option, as it was in Holly.
“A smaller location in a leased facility doesn’t carry as many upfront capital costs, though there are costs for any renovations necessary and, of course, lease costs over time,” she added. “And, in some situations, lease costs can be paid for using development charges (DCs) rather than the tax base.”
Coun. Gary Harvey, chairman of the finance and responsible governance committee, has said the new branch’s annual lease could be covered by DCs and any leasehold upgrades, if the location is leased like the Holly branch, could be covered through the city’s tax capital reserve.
DCs are designed to recover from developers the capital costs associated with residential and non-residential (commercial, industrial, institutional) growth within a municipality, so that existing residents don’t have to foot the bill.
The Holly Community Library, which opened in August 2022 at 555 Essa Rd., is 4,500 square feet in size. Its capital cost to open, including all books and shelves, was $1.1 million.
A northwest library branch was first discussed as part of the internal audit status update for the third and fourth quarters of 2024.
One matter was the value-for-money audit of the Barrie Public Library, which received $9.8 million in city money last year.
The audit concluded the Barrie Public Library is generally operating in an economical, efficient and effective manner — although the review identified areas of improvement to further increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the library’s processes and procedures.
The Barrie Public Library has branches in the city’s downtown on Worsley Street, and in the Painswick (Dean Avenue) and Holly areas of the city. It employs 40 full-time staff and 57 part-timers, according to the audit.
The downtown branch was built in 1996 and is 56,200 sq. ft., while the Painswick branch is 15,000 sq. ft. and was built in 2011.
The library board itself has spoken in the past about the need for more branches in Barrie — in community centres planned in the Hewitt's and Salem areas in the former Innisfil land, at 15,000 sq. ft. in size.
The city’s 2017 master facilities plan recommended a six-branch library system in Barrie to meet the provincial standard of 0.7 sq. ft. of public library space per capita. It mentioned library branches in Holly, Hewitt’s, Salem and northwest Barrie. The south-end community centres were planned for the future, with the current focus on a northwest library branch.
“In growth areas, where we can work with the city to build a facility to fully suit community needs, a larger library space is recommended,” Jessop said. “In the Hewitt/Salem areas, for example, we continue to work with the city on plans for recreation centre/libraries with library spaces planned in the 15,000- to 25,000-square-foot range.”
