One could make an inappropriate joke about a government funding announcement in front of a giant hole in the ground, but Baker Street was only filled with the laughter that comes from joy on Monday morning. The mood was celebratory at the site of the Baker District Redevelopment, future home of Guelph’s 88,000 square-foot new main library building, which just got easier to build with a $13.5 million cheque from the federal government.

The cheque today comes courtesy of the Green and Inclusive Community Buildings (GICB) program, which, according to a Government of Canada media release, was “created in support of Canada’s Strengthened Climate Plan: A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy. It is supporting the Plan’s first pillar by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing energy efficiency, and helping develop higher resilience to climate change.” The program has $1.5 billion available over five years.

“This funding is going to directly help us try and meet a lot of our emissions targets, more specifically by trying to cut our greenhouse gas emissions by about 63 per cent by 2030,” said Mayor Cam Guthrie who was on hand for the announcement. “We want to become a net zero community by 2050 or sooner.”

“This new building us going to be replacing our central library across the street, which is definitely dated, It’s been dated for a while now,” Guelph MPP Lloyd Longfield said. “We’re getting to a new place with an 88,000 square foot facility that’s going to transform this parking lot behind us from a former graveyard – and former other things – and becoming a new municipal building here in downtown Guelph. The new building will have lots of space to expand services, programs and activities, including outdoor spaces.”

Council approved the $67 million project in 2020 with the hope that it would attract financial assistance from upper levels of government as time goes on, but there were no guarantees. So when it comes to Monday’s funding, that means just shaving off $13.5 million from the amount of money that the City of Guelph has allocated to the project, right?

“It’s actually pretty much as simple as that in terms of the math,” Guthrie said. “A lot of the money from this $13.5 million is going to the very things that you would have found going into the construction of this building anyways. It will go directly to the overall envelope of costs that were set aside for the building.”

Also, the money will not accelerate the timeline. The new library is still set to open sometime in the later part of 2026. Construction on the underground parking structure is well underway and once that’s set, construction will begin on the library over top sometime later this year. In others words, the noise from Baker Street will continue for sometime yet.

“I wouldn’t say we’ve heard lots of complaints about noise, but noise comes with this type of activity,” said Guelph CAO Scott Stewart. “I would say that we’re not tone deaf, no pun intended, but we have to get through the construction to get to the opening. We’re always cognizant, of course, around noise bylaws, and we stay on top of that because there are residents that are on top of us here as well.”

See the video of the full announcement below: