LETTER

Pavilion & library: renovate or rebuild?

 

In her recent editorial, Who stands to win?, Lily Ryan raises excellent questions, in regard to the Marina Pavilion. Why, indeed, raze it to build a new one, if renovating it would cost a fraction of the price? One assumes Planex Consultants were given an outline of what the City had in mind. What exactly did City staff ask for and why? Further, was a study done on the prospects of being able to rent out the new facility (so that it doesn’t become a worse albatross around our necks, than it probably is already)?
    
Along the same lines: instead of razing the building that houses the Lucy-Faris extension of the Gatineau Library, because it’s not physically strong enough to accommodate expansion upwards, was any thought given to lightening the load? As I understand it, there is plenty of unused space in that building, and space presently occupied by services that don’t need to be there. Just have fewer books in the local outlets and, in Aylmer’s, spread them out.
    
The Library’s on-line service tells you if the book you want is available and delivers it to the local outlet. If all copies are out, they’ll put you on the waiting list and tell you when to pick it up. Why, then, wouldn’t we simply increase the storage capacity of the Library? Find a large unused  (read: cheaper) building, suitable for the purpose, and insert a retrieval system equal to the task of finding the book you want and getting it to the outlet nearest you quickly? Think Amazon. That way, our local outlets could be used for books that are often consulted, thus minimizing clutter and weight problems.

Ron Lefebvre, Aylmer