A new Yarraville library is due to be built next year under a deal struck with the owners of the former Bradmill site.
The library, scheduled to be taken over by Maribyrnong council next October, is part of a $20 million shopping centre development on the edge of the Yarraville Gardens development site.
The centre is to include a new 800-square-metre library built beneath apartments as well as a medical centre, restaurant, service station, two supermarkets and 30 shops.
The existing Wembley Street library would be closed once the council opens the new library, which under the agreement must meet the same standard of construction as the existing West Footscray library.
The council last week approved a 25-year peppercorn lease for the library with Denim Connection Pty Ltd.
The agreement follows a 2010 deal in which the cost for the new library was deducted from the development levy on the shopping centre.
A planning permit was issued in June, but the developer must finalise the lease for the library before starting work at the site.
A council’s officer’s report states that the landlord will provide the building shell but council will fit out the library.
“This was considered a positive outcome as council avoids having to commit capital to the building of a new library,” the report states. “The lease provides for a term of 25 years at peppercorn rental and an option for a further term of 25 years at a commercial rent.”
The report notes the lease requires the council to contribute to the operating expenses of the shopping centre to the tune of about $85,000 a year.
“A new, larger and more accessible building shell that will be converted by council to the Yarraville branch library will be an important piece of community infrastructure in Yarraville,” the report said.
The renamed Yarraville Gardens site, bounded by Francis Street, McIvor Reserve and the Newport freight railway line, was rezoned from industrial to residential and mixed-use in 2011.
