RPL director pleased new library is seen as a high-priority project

The City of Regina’s catalyst committee presented its report to city council on March 1, focusing on proposed mega-projects designed to revitalize downtown.

Prior to compiling the report, the committee asked residents to answer questions on the projects and found that modernizing the central library was the second-most important of the five, right behind building a new aquatic centre.

Jeff Barber, the director and CEO of the Regina Public Library (RPL), told the Greg Morgan Morning Show on Tuesday he’s very happy with the catalyst committee for recognizing building a new central library as a high-priority project.

“It was a good report and we’re looking forward to moving forward,” Barber said.

The RPL board decided in September the new library will be built in the same location as the current one, where it has been for 111 years, the library director said.

He also said the current building is just over 60 years old and is showing signs of wear and tear.

“We’re at a point where decisions need to be made to move forward and see what is possible for downtown Regina,” Barber added.

As for the project’s funding, he said the current needs assessment project plans features financial modelling that was largely done before the pandemic.

“It was great to see in the catalyst committee report a bit of an update of some of those costs on all the projects and also some proposals about that how that might happen,” Barber added. “In terms of moving forward, we’re very interested to see the council discussion (on the library) on March 22.”

He said library officials will look at next steps once they know the results of that discussion.

He also said he’s very pleased the catalyst committee recognized the library as one of the biggest catalyzing projects in the bunch.

“As a board, there hasn’t been a discussion in particular about the multi-purpose event centre,” Barber said. “We know and we have certainly gone through the work to establish a new central library along the lines of our needs assessment plan.”