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1) April 25, 2008 article
2) April 19, 2008 article
1)
 Old Calvin Park Branch
Shovels hit the ground for new library
After years of frustration hatched under one leaky roof, the wait is over and earth was moved for the new Calvin Park Branch Library this week.
But first, “I’m going to ask you to think back a few hundred years, to when this site was vast green woodland,” says Elizabeth Bowes, chair of Calvin Park Building Committee, at the sod-turning ceremony on Earth Day, April 22.
Bowes takes guests back to the early 19th century, 1856 to be precise, when the
Crystal
Palace was built to the east of adjacent property to house agricultural fairs.
“At that time,” she says, “C. W. Cooper, in his Prize Essay: Frontenac,
Lennox and Addington, wrote ‘The design is neat and exhibits much taste and judgement.’”
The new $5.3-million, 10,000-sq. ft. Calvin Park library designed by Kingston’s Shoalts and Zaback Architects, Bowes adds, “mirrors the marvelous light of that Crystal Palace with the excellent ‘taste and judgement’ that Cooper wrote about so long ago, all the while, using modern techniques to keep both the building and its surrounding lands as green as possible.”
As city council approved a year ago, it will meet the city’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver standard and comply with
Ontario’s accessibility laws.
Calvin Park library has been one of the most heavily used branches in the Kingston Frontenac Public Library system since it opened in 1966. While its patrons are of all ages, a great majority of them are seniors and young families in the neighbourhood.
“It is both crumbling and bursting at the seams,” Bowes says. “And at every single one of the entrances (there are four), you are confronted with stairs as soon as you get there.”
The current facility is about 10,000 sq. ft. as well. However, at two storeys, only the ground level is being used as a library. The basement contains two meeting rooms and space for children’s programming, storage and offices.
“It is abysmal,” says chief librarian Deborah Defoe, “and both levels are totally inaccessible.”
The new library, designed to be one storey, will be much bigger in terms of accessible size.
John Feenstra, manager of facilities and financial services for the Kingston Frontenac Public Library, is the project manager for the new Calvin Park library.
Feenstra says the build is very much within budget and construction will start “as soon as we get everything in place, hopefully in a week or two.”
Meanwhile, regular library activity will continue at the current location until construction is completed on the adjacent land, after which the old structure will be torn down.
“We hope to move in by early spring of 2009,” Feenstra says. “We have been waiting to do this for several years now — it all takes time.”
2)
Kingston Mayor Harvey Rosen
Ceremonies to mark start of new library
The Kingston Whig-Standard, April 19, 2008
Ceremonies marking the start of construction for the $5.3-million new Calvin Park branch of the Kingston Frontenac Public Library will take place Tuesday at 88 Wright Cres.
Mayor Harvey Rosen, members of city council, the Friends of the Library volunteer auxiliary group, the library board and area residents are expected to attend the 2 p.m. event.
The Calvin Park branch was built in 1966 and is one of the busiest in the system.
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