The federal and provincial governments have awarded $4.5 million to the Salt Spring Island Public Library Association for construction of a new library.

“This is great news,” said library board chair Tilly Crawley immediately after she heard the news last Thursday afternoon. “It’s like a bolt out of the blue, but it’s a very pleasant one.”

The announcement means Salt Spring taxpayers will be left with no more than $3 million in costs for the proposed new library on McPhillips Avenue if a late-fall referendum is approved for that amount of borrowing.

Crawley said she will convene a building committee meeting later this week to work out “the new numbers.”

At a meeting held just before Thursday’s announcement, Crawley said, board members elected to wait another week for the federal government’s decision.

If the funds were not approved from the federal or provincial government, island taxpayers would have been asked to support $7.3 million in borrowing for the library project, Crawley said.

“We’ll probably need three [million dollars] but that is certainly a lot less than $7.3 million,” she said.

The library board applied for infrastructure funding under the Building Canada Fund in late spring.

Under the arrangement, the provincial and federal governments will each contribute $2,275,492.

The contributions cover two-thirds of the project’s eligible costs of approximately $6.8 million.

Architects provided preliminary sketches of the proposed two-storey, 12,000-square-foot library building at an August open house.

The new building would include an enhanced children’s section, exterior courtyard and meeting space, program space, public seating and an enlarged computer area.

If approved, it will be constructed in two phases on the current library site and an adjacent lot at 125 McPhillips Avenue.

More information about the project is available at the Salt Spring Island Public Library’s front counter.

According to Thursday’s funding announcements, the federal and provincial governments will also contribute just under $80,000 each towards upgrades of the Mount Belcher Water System.

The Salt Spring Island projects are among 174 initiatives across the province that received a total of $719 million in infrastructure funding handed out last week.

The provincial and federal governmenst announced the infrastructure funding program earlier this year as a way to promote job growth and boost the economy.