{"id":2257,"date":"2013-05-28T13:41:19","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T17:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=2257"},"modified":"2013-06-05T11:58:05","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T15:58:05","slug":"old-library-should-make-way-for-new-community-use-say-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/old-library-should-make-way-for-new-community-use-say-residents\/","title":{"rendered":"Old library should make way for new community use, say residents"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aurora\u2019s old public library building should come down, according to residents.<\/p>\n

That was the overwhelming consensus of the attendees filling the Victoria Street landmark on Thursday in their second shot at pitching on what to do with Library Square.<\/p>\n

In the discussions, which were led by Al Downey, Aurora\u2019s Director of Parks and Recreation, not one member of the 20-strong public who turned up were in favour of retaining the 50-year-old building, or the adjacent former home of the Aurora Seniors\u2019 Centre, now home to Blue Balloon.<\/p>\n

While tearing down these two buildings in Library Square, which also houses the Aurora Cultural Centre and Victoria Hall, was unanimous, three clear ideas on what to replace them with also emerged at the top: replace the buildings with a new multi-storey, multi-use building; raze the buildings and put in a parking lot to accommodate already limited parking in the area; and, predominantly, a combination of both.<\/p>\n

Speaking in favour of a new building to replace the old was Councillor Evelyn Buck, who has long promoted her vision for a multi-storey building of studios that would be a \u201cdestination\u201d for local artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople need to know we have $30 million in the bank in the reserve fund, which a previous Council decided should not be frittered away,\u201d said Councillor Buck of the proceeds collected from the sale of Aurora Hydro. \u201cIt should be used to replace Hydro, which was a very practical asset and we should replace it with an asset that would be equally valuable to the people who live in the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI visualized [studio space] as something like the TV-series \u2018Fame\u2019, where the lights are on from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. and people of every age are coming and going from this building all day and it is a true people place in the Town of Aurora. We need to stretch our minds, stretch our imagination, and stretch our dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

A new multipurpose building captured the attention of most of the people in the room, but other ideas were ventured. One was a performing arts centre, a public piazza, an information centre, and a potential home for the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

Whatever ultimately replaces the building should have the same \u201cdynamism\u201d of what is there already, they added. The old public library currently houses community groups, such as the Aurora Bridge Club, a group which was well represented at Thursday\u2019s meeting, provides a home for the Aurora Air Cadets, as well as artistic and children\u2019s groups. <\/p>\n

For many, it was a matter of striking a balance between all these community interests and having a long-term vision, rather than it turning into a catch-all for every group looking for space.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe serve everyone and I think if you want to make this a truly centred area for the whole community, we need to serve all ages in whatever is built here to make it a truly vibrant place and not ghettoize it into just serving youth or just serving seniors,\u201d said Jill Foster, CEO of the Aurora Public Library. \u201cI think we need to mingle and be together, and that will make this area much more vibrant.\u201d
\nFor resident Greg Smith, however, there needs to be a clear plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sometimes feel we\u2019re trying to jam in everybody\u2019s needs and wants within this confined space and when you do that, it just doesn\u2019t have an identity to it,\u201d he said. \u201cMy concern is it takes on an identity of its own and that identity is something that is supported by a lot of the community and it may, in fact, have to exclude certain people or groups to fit that identity. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you talk about a jewel or a centrepiece of the Town, I think it is pretty important not to just have a mishmash of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although there were some differences in people\u2019s ultimate vision for the site, one thing that was crystal clear is residents want more parking in the area \u2013 and they want it now. <\/p>\n

\u201cParking is a very important issue,\u201d said one resident by the name of Mary. \u201cI am not discounting we need a multipurpose facility, but we cannot by any stretch of the imagination build something like this without a tremendous amount of parking and we are already way short.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making parking a reality could become an issue, Mr. Downey noted. Razing the old library would create approximately 67 surface parking spaces. Tearing down the building next door would make room for a possible 40. If you build up, that limits the amount of parking on each level to make room for driving around, while digging down for underground parking, there the problem of significant amounts of water just beneath the surface, a problem encountered when building the new Library and renovating the Aurora Cultural Centre. <\/p>\n

The parking issue will be underscored this summer when the first floor of Town Hall is closed for renovations and displaced office workers will set up shop in the Old Library. They too will need a place to park.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora\u2019s old public library building should come down, according to residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/2013-05-28-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-Ap","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-14 12:51:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}