A $352 Million Library, a $120,000 Park, and a Basketball Court That Isn't Likely Coming Back
Ottawa's new central library, Ādisōke, was budgeted at about $175 million. The latest approved figure is $352.4 million, with the building roughly 85 per cent complete and about a year behind schedule. The city's own staff blamed the first jump on a "super-heated construction market" in 2021. The newest $18.5 million request, of which the city pays $11.5 million, is for oversight and contingency because the contractor's schedule hasn't stabilized. The city isn't ruling out legal action.
Rawlson King sat on the Ottawa Public Library Board and on the Finance and Corporate Services Committee that received these reports. In 2023 he told residents that new municipal debt on Lansdowne carried an "opportunity cost," crowding out investment in higher priorities. That's a fair test, and residents are entitled to ask why it didn't apply here.
Meanwhile, Bathgate Park in Carson Grove is getting a $120,000 renewal, half of it from ward cash-in-lieu-of-parkland funds. The deteriorating basketball court is being removed this fall. The plan includes soil rehabilitation, trees and a pathway, and no replacement court. His office's earlier project listing described replacing the court. The consultation ran over a few weeks in July, including a Saturday-morning drop-in, a format unlikely to reach the teenagers and young men who play there.
None of the library money comes out of Bathgate's budget, and I won't claim it does. The point is about priorities and attention. The city can find hundreds of millions for a project that kept growing, while a neighbourhood loses its court. Borrowing costs make it worse. The last Ottawa debenture I found, in December 2025, was $250 million at 4.60%, and US long bond yields have since climbed above 5.6%. Every dollar of debt capacity is a dollar not available elsewhere.
The latest $18.5 million was before the Finance and Corporate Services Committee on June 2. King's next two newsletters, on June 5 and June 12, covered crisis response, free youth recreation and transit, and park fitness equipment. Neither mentioned the library or what it was costing. Residents who relied on his newsletter would have learned about it from the news, not from their representative on the library board.
What I'm asking:
Where is the replacement court?
Who was surveyed?
What did Ward 13's representative on the library board say while the costs doubled?
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