Ottawa’s finance and economic development committee unanimously agreed to allocate an extra $65 million for the city portion of a new central library after bids came in far higher than original estimates.

A city report released last week, and reviewed by councillors on Tuesday, revealed how tight pandemic supply chains and construction inflation led to a much higher budget to build the new central branch, a partnership with Library and Archives Canada (LAC).

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson told the committee city building projects are “costly and they’re not always easy,” adding the increased budget was not due to cost overruns, but factors city staff and professionals would not have predicted when they crafted the original estimates.

PCL Construction Ltd. submitted the lowest bid on Sept. 9, which would leave the City of Ottawa on the hook for nearly 60 per cent more than the $104 million estimate from June 2018.

The facility is now projected to open in the summer of 2026 at a total cost of $334 million, up from $193 million, which includes the portion paid for by the federal government and a parking garage.

At committee on Tuesday, city staff and the Librarian and Archivist of Canada, Leslie Weir, spoke to how the facility could draw tourists, as well as 1.5 million visitors overall each year, with its architecture and a collection that includes John McCrae’s handwritten original of the poem In Flanders Fields and the first edition L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.

It would also be an important piece to bridge the downtown with future LeBreton Flats development, they said. 

Keep reading on CBC News