East Village development agency to pitch in on new library

A city-owned subsidiary is poised to put down money to make the new central library in Calgary happen.

The city has set aside $175 million for a new downtown library, which will be built just east of city hall but another $75 million is needed.

Michael Brown, president of the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation — which is behind the re-development of the East Village, won't say how much money it will put into the project but promises it will be significant.

"Those are some of the things that we've, in terms of working through ... [the] budget with the city," he said. "All I can say is we've communicated we'll do whatever we can and, when the time is right, I'm sure they'll come out and talk about how they're going to approach it from a funding point of view."

Brown says efforts to revitalize the East Village will benefit from the library opening sooner rather than later.

"It speeds sales, in terms of residential sales. It moves it from in terms of a build-out time being longer, in terms of our different residential buildings, to shorter," he said. "So we actually see a benefit in terms of it increases the tax base faster in terms of the private sales."

The new library will replace the existing central branch, which was built in the 1960s.