I think library's are a thing of the past!...Just ask Google!

With all due respect jonnypg I just can't agree at all with your statement that libraries are a thing of the past.

Our PG library is keeping up very well with technology. Going on a long drive? - borrow a few stories on CD or cassette. Want to watch a DVD movie? - they are free at the library.

The library & Friends of the Library bring in authors who do readings & performances, in a wide variety of styles - those are always free to attend.

A lot of effort goes into children's programs to promote literacy from the earliest ages.

Google just won't replace snuggling up with a blanket, hot cup of tea and a good book.

hartbooks is right. When reading for leisure, there is no replacement for a real book.

Good bones? ... good lord, this guy is an architect or an archeologist? It is normally called a structural system. So, he/she was able to figure out that the structural system is capable of handling the loads but did not have the faintest clue about the mechanical system. I doubt that the existing system is built to the capacity to take on an addition. Unlike the structure, that is normally left to the time when the addition is put on. If the mechanical room is not large enough for additional air handling units, then it will have to be expanded or another one added. $25,000 just to study that?

The library is built to take another floor underneath it for parking. Hopefully they will find a way to take advantage of that and provide it since parking is at a premium in that area. It is also designed to be added to in the direction they are going. That was the original plan when it was built.

As far as fitting in with the downtown, what is badly needed is a coffee shop, a nice place pastry sit down place and similar opportunities for some other small commercial space such as is done in the Vancouver Library. This is a “dead” building otherwise. People drive to it, park, use the building, get back into their car, and drive back home or to the mall or wherever. Maybe, just maybe, they will use Timmy’s drive through on the way home.

Designing the library as a library is simple. Designing a Performing Arts Centre as a such, is simple. It will take an extraordinary effort and knowledge to design a library and other single purpose buildings such as that which take advantage of the people accessing them and keeping them downtown to promote the use of other space downtown. A good place to start is to integrate them with other “drawing card” uses which are commercially run.

For the life of me I cannot, for instance, figure out why the farmers market is not located in the dead space called the Civic Centre Plaza.

The Civic Centre Complex, the way it sits right now, is an excellent example of how not to use public buildings to improve downtown – a swimming pool, a multipurpose meeting building, a library, and a hotel showing its backside to the entire complex, none contributing to each other or the downtown. We even have the coliseum right across the street … and a city park about a 100 feet above it all with access off the backside.

Put a PAC into the mix without addressing the issue of truly integrating with any commercial downtown and nothing will have been solved, other than creating a parking nightmare for those nights when the swimming pool has evening swims, a larger event is going on at the civic centre, a hockey game is being played, the library is still open to 9pm, the Inn has a 300 person wedding, it pub has a name star headliner, and a PAC located in the midst of all that has a sold out performance in its 800 seat hall.

knock it down use the same old footings, and piers and build a new one. Just like they are doing with the Cameron Street Bridge. HAHA

Build it out of beetle killed wood and we get MPB money to boot.

Close Four Season's Pool.
The Aquatic Centre was built after people put pressure on the city to build it, saying the air was bad inside Four Seasons. Anybody else remember that?

So if the air was bad in there back then, why is it still open?
Do we really need two pools?
I agree with Owl that any construction downtown must be a catalyst for future growth.

I also agree on the Civic Centre as a perfect location for the Farmer's Market, especially since Java Mugga is gone. Perhaps the city would even see the benefits of keeping a farmer's market through at least part of the off-season, maybe setting up in the main lobby...that would be lovely!
Of course, it would have to be held only when the civic centre isn't being used for festival of the trees or Rotary auction...but it's definitely an appealing idea!!!!!

Yes johnny I agree. The only good thing google can't give you is a good romance or adventure. The library is big enough for that. Something else new and exciting in the city would be nice....just what is it though? I think the schools should receive the bigger study spaces and computers. Fix up a couple of the shut down schools , give some teachers a job and let us walk our kids to school instead of driving or taking the bus.