Location: Gatineau, Que.
Status: Existing Preservation Centre operational since April 1, 2020, New Preservation Storage Facility operational since June 28, 2022
Type of P3: DBFOM
Value of Partnership: $330 million NPV
Partners: Library and Archives Canada, Plenary Properties Gatineau (Plenary Americas and PCL Investments Canada Inc.)
Handback/End of P3 Agreement: 2054
Awards: 2022 Gold Award for Infrastructure, National Awards for Innovation and Excellence in Public-Private Partnerships
The state-of the-art new Preservation Storage Facility, built as part of the Gatineau 2 project, sits next to and complements the existing award-winning Preservation Centre in Gatineau, Que., which also underwent improvements as part of this DBFOM project. The Preservation Storage Facility is the first net-zero carbon building dedicated to archival preservation in the Americas and is the largest facility of its kind in the world equipped with a high-tech automated storage and retrieval system. Overall, the Gatineau 2 project is enabling Library and Archives Canada to ensure that our country’s precious collections are kept under optimal preservation conditions and is setting a new benchmark for archival facilities worldwide.
For example, the overall design of the building provides the storage conditions required to preserve the documents for 500 years. In other words, a new piece of paper stored under these conditions in 2022 should still be readable in 2522.
Public Sector:
Library and Archives Canada
Private Sector:
Plenary Properties Gatineau (Plenary Americas and PCL Investments Canada Inc.)
Design-Builder: PCL Constructors Eastern Inc.
Architect: B+H Architects
Services: EQUANS (Formerly ENGIE Services Inc.)
