Posted Jan 10, 2009, 10:39 PM
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It's Hammer Time
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Hamilton
Posts: 20,303
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Market and library designs "wow" Hamiltonians
January 10, 2009
BY ERIC McGUINNESS
The Hamilton Spectator
Stephanie Ross, who lives in Kirkendall Neighbourhood west of downtown Hamilton, was wowed by plans unveiled Saturday for a dramatic makeover of the Hamilton Farmers’ Market and ground floor of Central Library.
“I was really moved by the presentation. I cried,” she said.
“The architect has done an amazing job understanding the current problems in the market and coming up with a vision for downtown that is inspiring. It’s going to be a beautiful thing if they build it.”
Mayor Fred Eisenberger left little doubt city council will go ahead with the $7-million project, slated to start by late March and be finished by fall 2010.
Speaking to hundreds of people crowded into the library’s auditorium for a first peek at the renovation plans, the mayor said, “There is no better time to make strategic improvements in our downtown.”
In an apparent reference to the current economic recession, he said, “It’s more critical now than ever before to make investments to improve the quality of life downtown.”
Many others in the audience, while less emotional, shared Ross’s enthusiasm, but some stallholders aren’t happy about plans to replace the market’s two escalators with stairs and an elevator. Those with prime locations also worry about being moved.
Downtown Councillor Bob Bratina, who first visited the then-outdoor market with his grandmother to buy live chickens more than 50 years ago, told stallholders, “I guarantee you will all be proud of what we come up with.”
Bratina said the revamp will add a wow factor to the market and help “recapture the fun that there was 50 or 60 years ago,” a time downtown “was active and vibrant, not dark and empty.”
Jennifer Gautrey, chair of the Hamilton Public Library board, said there’s been little change in Central since it opened in 1980, but users now demand more computer access, multimedia materials and public space, needs that will be met in the renovation.
Premi, a Hamilton native who moved his family from Toronto to open an office here, calls the job “probably the most significant urban renwal project Hamilton has undertaken in the past 30 years.”
He says a glass curtain wall along York Boulevard, along with new glass walls inside, will make the market-library complex “about as transparent as a building can be.”
He said it will let library users and market shoppers see each other and be seen from the street "while filling the entire space with natural light."
A glass wall wrapping around the outside of Central Library and the Hamilton Farmers’ Market is the most striking feature of the facelift designed by architect David Premi.
The library’s first floor will stretch to the York Boulevard sidewalk, enclosing what library officials call a new community living room with comfortable seats, 50 public Internet stations and low bookshelves accessible from wheelchairs and scooters.
The wall, with colour-changing LED lights built in, will also create an indoor walkway and cafe connecting the library and market. Sliding glass panels will open the market to a widened sidewalk in summer.
A new staircase and glass-sided elevator will replace two escalators in the market, which will also gain an eating area, demonstration kitchen and sinks and refrigeration in each stall.
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