The new Stanley Milner Library is an ambitious project. Not only will the downtown Edmonton Public Library (EPL) branch be transformed, almost everything in — and on — the old building will find a new home as well.
The redevelopment was originally pegged at $69 million but additional issues with the foundation, mechanical systems, rebar and fire suppression systems, found during demolition, raised the construction costs.
“The building was old — it was built in 1966,” Johnny Nielson, with EPL Facilities and Operations, said. “A lot of unknown things were discovered as the demolition progressed. There’s been some challenges.”
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Almost every piece of the old EPL building — 93 per cent to be exact — has been saved to be reused or recycled. That translates to 3,400 tonnes of diverted construction material.
“Those large concrete slabs… were taken to a concrete recycling facility,” Local Waste Services’ Chris LaBossiere said. “They’ll be used as aggregate in new road projects.”
Just one concrete panel tips the scales at 8,000 pounds and fills an entire bin. Since the construction site sits in the busy downtown core, there are some space challenges.
“Millions of millions of pounds of materials coming off the building and because it’s such a very tight space in downtown Edmonton, we only have room for a couple of containers here.”
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Local waste services partnered with the city and Clark Builders to divert the concrete, ceiling panels, steel and wood.
“We’ve got the containers and the trucks to essentially ensure that the materials from the building are being sorted properly on site as much as we can,” LaBossiere said. “Then, it gets hauled to the city of Edmonton Waste Management Centre where they’ve had to handle this material more specially, set it off to the side and do more sorting on site.”
The one thing that wasn’t recycled? The carpet.
Relocating 50 years worth of books was a job in itself. Roughly 3,500 hours were spent packing and moving. Many of the staff are now working out of the temporary downtown library location, but furniture stayed behind.
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“We do actually have a lot of storage at Milner,” Nielson said.
“In the basement, level areas that aren’t in the construction scope are used for storage. All our furniture we’re going to be re-using — inventory is there.”
By early 2020, more than 230,000 square feet will be transformed. The new space will feel “quite different,” Nielson said.
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“We’ve increased the programming space by a whole floor, so we’ve gone from two floors to three.
“There’s a huge atrium now,” he added. “A lot of… areas and floors that have been cut out to let light through.”
Best of all, the new look will be achieved without clogging up the landfill.
“Definitely a little more work but no more expensive,” LaBossiere said. “Certainly the right thing to do.”
— With files from Kendra Slugoski
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