Haven Books is set to soft launch its new renovations in early April, with an official opening date to be announced on its Instagram account.
Just across Bronson Avenue, less than 10 minutes from Carleton’s campus, Haven Books is a bookstore and café run by the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA).
CUSA’s vice-president (finance) Vanessa Baptiste described Haven as a “haven” for students, artists and other community members.
“While other student associations have student union buildings, I would say that this is the same thing. This is our student union building,” Baptiste said.
The student-owned business opened in 2002 and promises to provide Carleton students with textbooks, coursepacks and consignments at a lower price than its competitors.
Baptiste said Haven has been going through major upgrades throughout the pandemic, including a new upstairs workspace, a windowed garage door and a mural inside the café.
Haven opened and closed periodically during the fluctuating COVID lockdowns. However, since September, the store has been open to sell new and consigned books through delivery and curbside pickup.
View this post on Instagram
In light of Doug Ford’s updated COVID-19 restrictions that came into effect on March 1, store manager Katie Berger said Haven Books is comfortable opening up for indoor dining and are excited to see new faces.
“We have a lot of room down here, we can space out tables comfortably so people feel safe and we feel safe,” Berger said.
Baptiste and Berger both expressed hopes to remain open throughout the entire upcoming academic year and to be able to accommodate summer students, while giving other Carleton creators a platform to produce and share their work.
Textbooks will now be found in one corner of the bookstore, with a larger selection housed in the basement, Berger said. Students and community members will also be able to rent the upstairs workspace and media rooms to use Haven’s green screens and audio recording equipment. The newly renovated upstairs replaces an apartment that CUSA used to lease out for residential use.
To book a room in the second-floor workspace, Berger said students will be able to fill out a form on the Haven website once it is updated within the next few weeks to accommodate the new feature.
The mural’s artist, third-year communications and media studies student Mya Duguay, said her mural reflects the Canadian Tulip Festival—one of the only events that was open to unite the Ottawa community during the pandemic. In the mural, she painted an array of tulips and plans to add small people among the flowers.
“That idea was more for taking away the sense of gender, race, sexual orientation and realiz[ing] that all of us are dealing with [the pandemic], dealing with the world, in the same way,” Duguay said.
View this post on Instagram
Employees of Haven Books said they are also excited about the changes.
“We used to have a much smaller café, now it’s way bigger. We got a brand new fancy latte machine, so very exciting stuff,” said Ben Kissner, a supervisor at Haven and former music student at Carleton.
Baptiste described the renovation’s goal as reclaiming Haven for the student community and providing low-cost equipment options for those who are interested in kicking-starting their talents but may not have the resources otherwise.
“This is a place off campus that was renovated with a purpose to engage Carleton students after basically almost three years of being online,” Baptiste said. “I feel like that’s a fantastic opportunity just to encourage students to come out and be like, ‘You know what, this is a safe space for me. This is what makes Carleton different.’”
Featured image by Daria Maystruk.
