Residents concerned about Central Library move, but 'it's a done deal'

Dozens of Windsor residents, business owners and community leaders debated the city's move to sell the Central Library location to the Downtown Mission.

Some called for more affordable housing while others gave dire warnings about the death of tourism in the downtown core once the transfer is complete. 

• New city hall to be temporary home of Central Library as of next June

• Downtown Mission buying Windsor Public Library central branch for $3.6M

"This is going to harm tourism," said Ron Balla, co-owner of the Coffee Exchange in Windsor. 

"This is going to harm it more than the schools are going to help it coming downtown," he said, talking about recent announcements by the University of Windsor and St. Clair College to expand into the city's core. 

Balla also believes the city needed to do more to make sure the future use of the library building would be something that works for the current core. 

"It feels like the consultation wasn't there — it feels like we weren't consulted in this at all."

'Clustered' social services an issue

Downtown Windsor BIA chair Larry Horwitz said the concerns raised during this forum will be brought forward to the BIA board meeting Wednesday. 

"There's a real issue downtown right now of all the social services being clustered on Ouellette Avenue and all the areas around it," he said.

People are visiting Windsor because "the downtown is amazing" and "people are investing in it," he said. But the sale of the library doesn't look like the investment and growth the BIA wants for the city's core.

"We need businesses downtown, we need residents downtown. Those are the most important things. They're the ones who pay your taxes. They're the ones who build your city," Horwitz said.

He reiterated the concerns from the town hall about there being no consultation, but instead, said there were a lot of closed-door meetings about the sale of the library.

"Everything seems to be hodgepodge put together."

'It's a done deal'

While Horwitz and other concerned parties may hope the deal will stop in its tracks, there isn't much they can do.

"There's fear going on because they don't understand what we're doing or why we're doing it," said Ron Dunn, CEO of the Downtown Mission.

Dunn said they will sell the old location to move services into what is now the Central Library location, along with 25 affordable housing units. 

"Somebody said there's no development downtown. You're right. So we're developing downtown. Not for the population that maybe the community in there is calling for us to do, but that's our mandate," said Dunn. 

He said they tried to buy the building located next to their current overnight homeless shelter on Ouellette Avenue, as well as the recently-listed HMCS building, but neither location fit what they were looking for. 

• Downtown Mission homeless shelter expands to second site

He said it's time for people to move past the sale of the library because it's a done deal. 

"It can't be stopped. We've purchased the library," said Dunn, who said it's legally impossible to stop the sale at this point. 

Dunn said the Victoria Avenue building will be listed for sale soon.