The Barrie Public Library could be branching out again.
City councillors requested Dec. 11 that library officials prepare a business case concerning an additional boutique or small library space — similar to the Holly Community Library location — in northwest Barrie and provide the results before 2025 budget talks conclude, or to the next finance and responsible governance committee meeting.
“The northwest section of Barrie is a little underserved,” said Deputy Mayor Robert Thomson. “I really believe (a library branch) would be utilized and I think it would be a success in that quadrant of our city — just with the residential there and not too many city services.”
No specific location has been identified, and Thomson said he will leave that with library officials. It would likely be leased space.
“Libraries are really important social infrastructure that sometimes is taken for granted,” said Coun. Ann-Marie Kungl. “Sometimes I think they are overlooked fabrics of our community.”
“This would be an excellent opportunity to provide library services to youth and young people specifically that wouldn’t necessarily otherwise have access, one, but two, probably wouldn’t get on a bus to go down to the downtown library,” said Mayor Alex Nuttall.
Coun. Gary Harvey, chairman of the finance and responsible governance committee, agreed.
“You see the success when you’re able to build in the communities, as opposed to having to jump on transit or have mom and dad drive you and drop you off,” he said.
Harvey said the new branch’s annual lease would be covered by development charges (DCs) and any leasehold upgrades, if the location is leased like Holly, would be covered through the city’s tax capital reserve.
DCs are designed to recover the capital costs associated with residential and non-residential (commercial, industrial, institutional) growth within a municipality from developers, 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 on finance and responsible governance committee’s agenda 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 this 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, and in the Painswick and Holly areas of the city. It employs 40 full-time staff and 57 part-timers, according to the audit.
The library is what the city calls a 'service partner' and will present its 2025 budget to councillors early in the new year.
Barrie councillors are to receive 2025 budgets from city service partners — the County of Simcoe, Barrie Police Service and the library — on Jan. 8, then hear presentations of these budgets Jan. 15.
General committee’s budget talks are to be Jan. 22, with city council approval of the total operating and capital budgets slated for Jan. 29.
The Barrie Public Library's 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.
