Groundbreaking of new Archives Canada preservation facility
August 13, 2019
By
CCE
Once complete in 2022 it will be the first Net Zero Carbon archival centre in the Americas.
(l-r): Albert Iwasaki, Representative of Plenary Properties Gatineau; Scott Hamilton, Director General, Real Property, Library and Archives Canada; Steven MacKinnon, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, and Member of Parliament for Gatineau; Guy Berthiaume, Librarian and Archivist of Canada; Anick Ouellette, Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services and Chief Financial Officer, Library and Archives Canada (CNW Group/Library and Archives Canada)
Construction on the new net-zero carbon 12,900 sq. m. preservation facility at the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) in Gatineau has begun.
The addition of the new building, which will be linked to the existing preservation centre, will allow LAC to consolidate its growing collection and guarantee the long-term preservation of analogue textual holdings and audiovisual materials, which require very special conditions.
The centre will provide 21,240 cubic metres, or the equivalent of about 8.5 Olympic-sized swimming pools, of collection storage capacity and will also be one of the world’s largest facilities equipped with an automated storage and retrieval system for archival collections.
The $330 million P3 contract for this project was awarded to Plenary Properties Gatineau — made up of Plenary Group (Canada) Ltd.; PCL Investments (Canada) Inc.; B+H Architects; PCL Constructors Eastern Inc.; and ENGIE Services Inc.
The facility is slated to be in operation by summer 2022.
