Hub Staff

After months of meetings and touring town halls around Ontario, the Southampton Town Hall Ad Hoc Committee Chair Duncan McCallum presented findings and ideas to Council during a pre-Council information session as well as a delegation during the Committee of a Whole meeting April 10.

During his delegation to councillors, McCallum listed a 2017 Town Hall project to include: exterior masonry repairs and repainting, access to the tower, stage floor and dressing room upgrades, as well as a twinning feasibility study with the Southampton Library. McCallum stated that 54 companies had responded to a Request for Proposals that is slated to close April 25 that could result in the Southampton Library and Town Hall becoming a cohesive and accessible unit. McCallum said that the Ad Hoc Committee was also tasked with looking at the importance of keeping the library next to the Town Hall in downtown Southampton.

“A design and engineering study that the Town approved in the 2017 budget, that study will look at the feasibility of bringing the buildings together,” said McCallum, who stated it would be not unlike the Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre with the “new part married to the old part.”

McCallum said this twinning project may or may not include tearing down the Southampton Library and added that the building has major problems including insufficiencies in terms of size. To meet library standards, the required square feet is 3,500, Southampton’s library is currently 2,400. Additional problems include accessibility issues and problems with the HVAC system.

A Thor Dingman architectural report in 2011 stated that the Southampton Library should expand by 900 square feet, which McCallum said would work if they build up, essentially having three levels, with the upper level connecting with the auditorium level of the Southampton Town Hall.

The existing lift is small and in need of repair while the washrooms around the exterior do not fit accessibility standards and the Committee believes that new accessible washrooms can be created. McCallum said a new elevator could be installed in an atrium between the two buildings.

Councillor Don Matheson supported the efforts of the Ad Hoc Committee and which includes Vice Deputy Mayor Diane Huber and Councillor Cheryl Grace. “I believe that this new building should be the hub of Southampton and the ideas that you have will bring a lot of people in and make it a very useful facility,” said Matheson.

Councillor Grace explained that they would like to follow the Stouffville’s Lebovic Centre sustainability model. “Their public advisory board brings in volunteers that work as ushers and who are involved in fundraising and they have constant fundraising going on even though the building was completed in 2009. It is a good sustainable model for a number of reasons,” said Grace.

McCallum seconded Grace adding that the method would speak to the strengths in the community and volunteer effort.

Councillor Mike Myatt asked McCallum when he will hear more about the projects presented to Council to which McCallum that they will wait on Town staff to make decisions and recommendations that will come back to Council. A consulting report will be in due in August, with McCallum suggesting that forms of public engagement be mandatory.

The Town Hall Ad Hoc Committee had a mandate to create recommendations for action to provide for: long-term structural revitalization and sustainability; maintaining and improving the use of the building; and setting out aesthetic and functional upgrades to the municipal lands surrounding the Southampton Town Hall.