Category Archives: Claridge

Spring Craning

An interesting demonstration of evolving design came to west siders this week courtesy of our high rise developers. Better design is everywhere these days. For that we can credit the popularity of industrial design schools, increased awareness of graphic design elements, and the popularity of design-centric programs on TV and the ‘net. Now we can see it on our skyline by craning our necks.

Up on Cathedral Hill, Windmill developments installed their crane for their new condo tower. It is the conventional design. Dare we call it the ‘old fashioned’ design?

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Notice the complicated support wires, the heavy concrete block weights, and the high superstructure. Basic engineering, hoisted high into the sky.

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Meanwhile, down below on the Flats, Claridge has just installed a crane for the next phase of the LeBreton project, a mid-rise apartment building (8 floors) and some all-concrete stacked towns.

This is one slick crane:

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There is no superstructure, few visible wires, the concrete blocks of the counterweights are sliced to create an aerial sculpture. The operator’s cabin is a tinted bubble that would be at home on Chris Hadfield (just like the space station, there ain’t much privacy there for life’s necessities).

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I had a house guest up from the US of A in February who remarked that Ottawa looked very dynamic and thriving, with cranes and construction projects everywhere. I guess five years of recession on the eastern seaboard has rendered cranes absent there.

We will soon see more cranes — Soho Champagne is blasting away the bedrock for their garage on Champagne and Hickory Streets, a crane can’t be far behind. It will replace the one Domicile just took down across the street at their Hom condo.

Over on Preston, Claridge is installing something that looks suspiciously like a sales office for their Icon 40+ storey building.

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Condomania on Carling: Domicile joins in

Domicile has a proposal winding its way through the bureaucratic maze at City Hall. It’s for a 18 storey condo building on Rochester Street, between the Queensway and Carling Avenue, near Dow’s Lake.

Here’s what the street looks like now:

Domicile owns the lot running from Pamilla Street and Rochester (the intersection in the foreground) all along Rochester to the red brick wall of a 3 1/2 storey low rise.  Domicile already has permission to demolish the elderly house in the middle .

Here’s an aerial view of the lot set within the south Dalhousie neighborhood:

The Queensway runs east-west across the top of the picture, and Carling Avenue across the bottom. The big black office tower is the Feds, the Logan building housing NRCan. Preston Square, the popular mixed-use development on Preston, is shown at the top centre-left. Domicile’s lot is just to the left of the Logan black tower, outlined in red. We can zoom in to see it up closer:

Notice the long, low building running parallel to the left side of Domicile’s lot. This is Barry Hobin’s office building, running all the way through from Pamilla to Norman Street. It was so prescient of him to buy a few years ago before the land rush.

The lot is currently zoned for 14.5m, or 5 stories. But that isn’t a hindrance.  Domicile is proposing a 18 storey building. It would have 132 condos, 3 “townhouses” facing Pamilla, 113 parking spaces for residents, and another 25 for guests. There would be 1453 sq ft of commercial space facing Rochester, enough for one large or two small storefronts.

Here are two street level views of the proposed tower. It is a big change from Domicile’s usual buildings, which are dominated by brick exterior walls punctuated with individual windows. This appears to be an “all glass” tower. Hobin is the architect. Ottawa Hydro contributes those third-world-ish wooden poles holding up electrical wires. They add character to the ‘hood.

 

The building is quite severely stepped back in a saw-tooth pattern from the southeast corner to the southwest corner. This exterior pattern is more expensive to build than a square building.  I’ve been trying to figure out if this is done to maximize views, but I do notice it lets lots of light onto the lot next door. Which is owned by Domicile’s architect, Barry Hobin. If and when Hobin retires, and develops his lot into another 18 storey tower, it will offer him significant benefit, opening up vistas and letting light in. If I were building on Domicile’s lot, I would give long thought to potential conflict of interest in letting the guy next door design my building, but then I’m probably too cynical and paranoid to boot.

Here’s the street view from Pamilla Street. In the left pic, that Volkswagen is parked in front of Hobin’s building site, with Domicile’s stepped back façade behind. I notice the Domicile building has a projecting flat roof on the top floor, something Hobin also put on the midrise recently constructed by Thiberge on Richmond Road a few doors east of Island Park. *

 

Here are some aerial and perspective views from different angles. The first is a flat elevation:

Rather more interesting is this one, that adds in several approved or proposed buildings:

Starting from the OTrain on the left in the above pic, notice the diagonal placement of the Arnon towers (positioned that way until the City decides it doesn’t need his front corner for the OTrain or LRT). The artist shows great restraint in putting only two towers on the Dow Motors lot, since there is room (going along the tracks) for at least four. Claridge’s 42-storey Icon tower is shown at the corner of Preston and Carling. This building is getting a redesign, see tomorrows story.

A third building has appeared on the Arnon block that currently holds two mid-rise red-brick office towers (shown in blue) designed by Alistair Ross. I vaguely recall that he had original planning permission for three towers on this site. The front lawns along Carling that belong to the feds are shown holding a parade of towers.

Moving down Rochester, there is an unknown tower, and then Domicile’s proposed tower. In the background, the giant parking lot and former trucking terminal belonging to Arnon, immediately south of the Sakto complex at 333 Preston (Xerox, Adobe, et al) is shown with two towers. I am aware that Arnon is talking to the city about what to put there, including a large retail presence, maybe someone’s grocery empire.

All of the above anticipated towers are roughly in accord of what I know of the City’s thinking on its Carling-Bayview CDP, and certainly also in the mindset of George Dark, who recently held a planning event in the neighbourhood that saw a veritable meteorite shower of high buildings impact onto the neighbourhood.

Most curiously though, is the 18 storey high rise put right on Preston, at Norman. If my memory serves me right, this is currently a large lot holding a two storey office building including the Bank of Nova Scotia. Hmm. Isn’t Sketch-up wonderful?

Finally, here’s a Photo-shopped view from the Arboretum cycle path along Dows Lake. In this view, the forest of condo towers has been thinned down to just Domicile, Claridge, and Mastercraft-Starwood.

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* for a closer up view of the baseball bill on a condo, see http://www.westsideaction.com/look-up-way-way-up-jerome/

Charettes — or is it charades? — on the west side

The City of Ottawa’s CDP on the Bayview-Carling area has long been an embarrassment. Not that its key worker bee has been lacking, but rather that the city has endlessly unfunded it, delayed it, postponed it, and frustrated it, while many of the prime lots have been spot rezoned, frequently from a two or four storey height to twenty, thirty, and now forty+ stories.

But there are many more sites yet to be rezoned, and the developers are lined up four deep for rezoning, so the City flew in its favourite swat team Urban Strategies, of Toronto.

Here are some impressions of the George Dark – direct from the Centre of the Universe — charette exercise. A charette is a fancy french word for a brainstorming exercise whereby a bunch of people gather around to discuss — and perhaps resolve — a design problem.

This was done by viewing overhead projections of some designs adopted by other cities that had similar problems. By hearing frequent anecdotes about how Toronto has already successfully solved our (much smaller) problems. And by gathering ’round a 6′ x 6′ printed out air photo of the neighborhood with styrofoam scale models of the approved high rises and a lifetime supply of generic apartment building models to be positioned around the map by George Dark or his colleague Eric. Although the lifetime supply ran out before the end of the first afternoon, and the model maker worked on for many hours over two days cranking out “another 18 storey” or “a six story plus two, set back”, or “a fieldhouse, one loft with some two”.

the base model, before the Helicopters started raining down new buildings onto the neighborhood. No one was hurt, though, as the new buildings were styrofoam and not brick.

I can’t give a blow-by-blow account of the exercise, as it would be two days long. But here are some personal observations.

Mind your Wills and Mays

Mr Dark is a charming and eloquent person. He is likeable. And he has lots of experience in large scale development. Vocabulary is important. A lot could be gleaned by listening carefully. The area will get lots more highrises. There will be lots of intensification. We will have to adjust. There will be major changes. We — the residents – must change.

Developers may choose to provide this. They may include streetscaping. They may have underground parking. There may be landscaping behind the infills. The City may decide to add a park.

There’s your opinion, and the right opinion

Several times during the presentation someone would say something along the lines that they liked what was here now, and why change, or that they didn’t like something. Often, the moderator rolled with the comments and carried on smoothly. But more than once those comments elicted a sharp “well, that’s your opinion, it’s only one view, and others think differently”. Someone playing along with the preferred dialogue of how many more buildings can we fit along the street, never got reprimanded, but did get elevated into the select club of “we think”. A more than subtle nudge along the direction of correct thought according to Dark Vader.

Fortunately the Agenda 21 intervenor was ignored, and the Glebite who thought a stadium or Senators ice hockey rink would be perfect for Dows Lake got politely navigated by. It proved harder to avoid the lady who thought we should be discussing, in detail, all the possible options and their advantages for a Carling Avenue main LRT line from Kanata that would end at the corner of Carling and Preston.

I’ll see you “four” and up it by “two”

Planning speak can be very curious. If a member of the public present said an area could accept be intensified from two stories to four (ie, stacked townhouses), Mr Dark would repeat out loud “four stories”, thus informing the speaker that he or she had been heard. Within 30 seconds, George, warming up into the next paragraph, would summarize this as “four to six”. About sixty to ninety seconds later he would pause in the middle of his new topic, and in a sotto voice, turn to his faithful assistant over by the big sheets of paper with coloured markers, wave his fingers, and say “six to eight”. And thus the morning went by.

Planning is a sort of high stakes poker, with condo floors being the  chips.

The first time I heard Mr Dark say “eight stories transitioning down to ten”, I figured he had made a slip of the tongue. Obviously eight goes UP to ten. Or ten goes down to eight. But throughout the days, I heard this over and over again. Six transitioning down to eight. Sixteen down to eighteen. Words mean exactly what he means them to mean. Alice should have been a planner.

New Park Proposed

A lot of time was spent on the suggestion of a new major chunk of parkland along Beech Street, to occupy the entire block west of Champagne and north of the Emerald Tower, although at one time it was suggested that another building might be squeezed in between the Emerald and the Park. To acquire this park site would cost somewhere in the five to seven million dollar range, if we go by the selling price of similar lots in the area.

While the park idea was well received, it does create two park parcels bisected by Champagne. So another hour was spent speculating on how the City might have a closable street through there, or how one could possibly mitigate that, and what colour one might use to paint the bollards.

Note that there was no suggestion that a large development site be sacrificed to park land; that was specifically rule off the table. Can’t be done, said George. However, the Beverley Apartments, modestly priced accommodation for the modestly waged, well that could go to create an urban playground for the better waged incomers who will live in those gleaming glass towers. As for those displaced residents — too bad, so sad.

The Great Wall of Carling grows a block deeper

Residents and observers of the rezoning applications along the Carling end of the neighborhood have frequently mentioned the proposed “wall” of high rise buildings along the street. Two twenty-something towers on the parking lot at Champagne. Three to five towers to replace Dow Motors. Soho Italia at 500 Preston (still somewhere around 30 floors), or Claridge’s 505 Preston (42 stories), and a buncha unnamed ones continuing along Carling as one goes east.

Until recently, the CDP planning team had alluded to a single row of towers along Carling. Our concerns that they would merely be the first row of many more to come further north, were downplayed. Mr Dark had no such compunctions. Yup, build another row behind them. Or two. At least all the way to Adeline Street. And start to transition down from the thirty and forty floor towers on the south side of Adeline by putting more high rises on the north side (yup, twenty floors on the north side, in the “low rise” area, would be a nice transition down).

Rochester – the previously missed opportunity

All the residential streets running east meet Rochester along the edge of the NRCan properties. The abrupt change from mid and high rise office buildings to low rise residential creates and “uncertain” zone, ergo the houses have been converted to restaurants, or parking lots, and empty spaces, just waiting for a clever suggestion of what to build there. Domicile  is first out of the gate, asking for 14 to 18 floors for a condo tower at Norman/Rochester. Dark’s model maker promptly produced five more to fill up the end of every block ending at Rochester.

Once the ‘low rise’ central neighborhood area got bookended by a long line of high rises, it was pretty simply to toss in a few 20 story ones along Orange Street, adjacent to Ottawa’s cute little airplane-sized-spirit-bottle Distillery Distict which would be fashioned out of the historic red brick Mineralogical Laboratory buildings (now vacant, condemned by gross contamination).

Once the row of Rochester high rises reached the current Preston Square development, three or more high rises were plopped onto the large parking lot between the successful Sakto development and the Prescott Tavern. Might as well throw in some six storey new buildings along Preston mainstreet too. And maybe behind them, throw in a few real high rises, sorta like the Adobe building lurking behind the successful row of shops immediately north. They simply won’t be noticeable, we were informed.

Deja Vu 1950′s, motor-centric Ottawa

I was very surprised by one of the urban strategies recommended. Not recommended, that’s too passive a word. Maybe “earnestly sold” or promoted, over and over. I thought that catering to the car was passe, but it sprang up from its coffin, the wooden stake extracted, and the nightmare began: Dont build a pedestrian bridge over the OTrain at Hickory. Make it a road bridge. To “complete” the neighborhood grid (completeness, it seems is only visible thru the windshield of a car, but not perceptible by foot or bike). And the OTrain linear park, new home of the million dollar bikeway now under construction, is apparently unlike the Byron streetcar linear park in that this one will be improved by the addition for three to six new cross streets every 200′.

And that existing ped bridge at Young, get rid of it, put in a car bridge. And some new roads. Put one along the east side of the OTrain cut, to connect up those dead end streets to make it easier for motorists to circle the block looking for parking (actually said !). Can’t we extend those other dead end streets over to join Railway Street on the west side of the cut? George wanted to extend almost all the streets over the cut. I say almost all, because he notably didn’t want to extend those streets that would go through the high rise development sites along Champagne, only those that would deliver motorists to the low rise residential area.

Rentlentlessly criticized and hounded by residents, who continually came back to the undesirability of the Autowa plan, Mr Dark later conceded that the new north-south road might be more like a mews, a lane, cute, mixed use with kids playing on it. The east-west roads would be full size, though. I have no doubt that More Roads will be in the final report.

Why did he want that north-south road along the east side of the OTrain cut?…

Blockbusting revisited, and the Fonze jumps the tracks

Anyone experienced in urban planning exercises quickly learns the standard block busting methods used by cities and developers. Buy a property. Let it run down. Abandon it. Forget to turn off the water when winter comes. Declare it uninhabitable. Make sure it looks ugly. Someone sooner or later will report children nearby playing with matches. Soon the neighbors will applaud when some civic minded functionary suggests demolishing it.

I couldn’t help but think of the analogy when dealing with the short dead end streets running west of Preston. They are short. Some with as few as six houses. More commonly, ten to fourteen houses, on 25′ lots. Most of the residents at the charette wanted these areas preserved for low rises — four floors or less. But the planners enthused about rebuilds along Preston going to six floors. And maybe a taller building behind, where they were be invisible to passers-by. And at the railway track end of the streets, why not intensify the block ends with some new apartments. Like 18 stories high. If you haven’t done the math, the street is now left with very few low rises. And if someone in that short block should happen to apply for a higher building, why that’s up to Council to decide in its wisdom whether that would be desirable. Calling Katherine Hobbs!

And those 18 story high rises, repeated at each dead end along the railway track, was why we need the new streets running along the OTrain corridor. And once Fonzie gets those  Champagne high rises to “jump the tracks”, the block busting is well underway.

Did I mention that major developer is suggesting an 18 storey high rise is appropriate for their site on Norman?

Leading the Charette, George Dark (at left) is flanked by Bob Fobert [Fotenn planning consultants], the head of Charlesfort the condo builders, and the head of Arnon corporation, the condo and office builders. In the foreground, a slightly discouraged-looking resident — hello Aline! — holds up her head.

Florida, Spike, and the Gang 

Am I super-sensitive, or what? I was irritated each time we were told with some enthusiasm that Rod Lahey (architect of many of the glass towers) was moving into an older industrial building on Beech. This is definitely the stamp of approval, the Richard Florida creative -class blessing our previously obscure neighborhood. And he is following on the steps of Barry Hobin, also a landowner who has his offices here, and who was present but not captured in the photo above.

Lahey’s office was represented at the meeting by a junior architect. Let’s call him Spike. Who exuded confidence that his employer’s new high rises would bless and elevate the neighborhood out of the dark ages. We would soon arrive at the gates of nirvana! You poor souls don’t know how lucky you are. We do. We will refashion the neighborhood into a walkable live-work-play transit-oriented-utopia. He so looked forward to working in his new offices.

I got the impression at one point he was being paid to be at the meeting by the Dark crew itself, but surely after the city-planning-department-hiring-fotenn controversey, they couldn’t have thought doing it through a subcontract would be less obvious. Could they?

Spike may change his mind in October, though, because I learned he actually lives in Greeley or some place exurban like that, and plans to drive to work everyday. Alas, the new Lahey premises don’t seem to have any parking, but that’s just a minor glitch for a site that is surely a retirement-nest-egg for the Lahey fortune. Another thirty story condo there would fund many a winter in Hawaii while the habitants slug through the snow on the five foot wide sidewalks.

Roderick Lahey, Architect’s new offices, Florida North, come to Beech Street, in delightful proximity to the Prescott, such a quaint and cute place to observe the locals in their rapidly disappearing habitat

Of restrained smiles, grins of glee, and smirks

While observing George Dark work by the teams of architects and developers and city planners, I noticed that many of them were readily identified by their tight little smiles. Lips compressed. Often corners of the mouths turned down slightly. But still obviously happy, just not laughing out loud.

Whazzup? I wondered. Were they happy to be participating with the local peasantry, in a joint collaborate urban planning game of charette? Or were they grinning with glee at the positive snowstorm of styrofoam high rises scattering over every corner of the neighborhood? Or was it a smirk, of the I-know-something-you-don’t school?

The “professionals” were readily separable from the locals whose most common posture was arms folded across their chests. Their frowns outnumbered smiles tenfold.

Of the city planners present, I thought they didn’t share the smirk enthusiasm. More than once I saw frowns of dismay.

Big Cheeses don’t smell when absent

The sessions were attended by the aforementioned residents and property owners and architects and developers and city planners and planners-for-hire.

Councillor Holmes dropped in three times. Her staff was present for the whole event. Of Councillor Hobbs and her staff — missing in action. Ditto Cherneschenko, and McCrae (the intersection of Carling and Preston is home to four wards, but most of the action is in Holmes and Hobbs’ wards). The City’s new policy planner chief boffinette came by to hear the opening remarks, but only a few weeks into the planning job, she didn’t feel it was necessary to stay for long.

The NCC sent a representative, who talked rather freely and openly for a civil servant, although she strung so many four syllable abstract words together in each sentence there was a certain ambiguity to what she might have said. NRCan/Canada Lands Corp was represented by one of the hats worn by Mr Fobert-Fotenn, who was also present on behalf of several property owners, developers, and possibly the City planning department itself.

While planners worked inside, just outside City surveyor’s were busy, giving the impression the City was acting promptly to implement the change.

Was the exercise worthwhile?

Well, yes. I learned something. That you could put an awful lot of high rises in a neighborhood if you really try. That what Ottawa really needs is a lot more of Toronto. That highrise condos selling for $450 a foot are the new definition of affordable housing. And that the people buying these new affordable homes will be delighted to pay yet more levies to improve the neighborhood, since the only way we may get local improvements is through the benevolence (or sec 37 extractions)of developers. There will be no real estate bust, esp. for condos.

The future is bright, and shiny, and made of glass. And is very very tall.

Future shape of high rises in Carling and Preston areas

Preston Street is an odd mainstreet, in that it has minimal hinterland of dense residential development. Hintonburg’s and Westboro’s main street areas are more densely built up and have large catchment areas on all sides with a mix of low-rise and high-rise built form. Preston lost its eastern residential areas when 50′s urban renewal wiped out existing urban fabric to replace it with commuter office towers (NRCan), a commuter high school (Commerce, now Adult HS), and a commercial strip predicated on a city-wide market (the ethnic Italian community) rather than an indigenous market. Thus merchants champion converting housing to parking lots, and since the merchants rarely live in the neighborhood, might be more easily convinced of the merits of selling to developers.

Preston Street, the heart of the remaining bit of Little Italy (which used to include all of what we now call Chinatown) is unusual too in that it is in valley, a syncline caused by the Nepean Gloucester Fault Line, parts of which are visible near Lemieux Island,  by the Russian Orthodox church on the transitway, the bowling green beside the Queensway near Parkdale, and Hogs Back.

Notice below the intersection of Carling-Bronson on the top right, and trace your finger along Carling to Preston and then Sherwood and then up the hill to the Farm:

I was interested  to come across the drawing below, whose origin shall for the time being remain unspecified. The faint title of the page is “neighborhood analysis”, and the top part of the sketch is a profile of the existing Preston-Carling area as seen looking north from somewhere over Dow’s Lake.  The building on the far right is the Fitzsimmon’s Building, aka the Nortake Building, and probably known as something else now, right at the corner of the Carling and Bronson.

The tallest existing building in the mid-point area is the NRCan 18 storey office tower at Rochester. There are plans to build a similar office tower immediately to the north of it, presumably that is the light gray shadow, or it could be the OCH red brick apt building in the distance at Gladstone and Rochester. Note that all the area from about Bell St N to Norfolk is marked as having “NO MAX”, which presumably refers to the height limit. I think this refers only to the NRCan lands, and not to all the lands beyond going back to the Queensway …  (Try double clicking on the image to make it larger).

At Preston Street, there is one 9 storey apartment building existing on Sidney Street, a half block down from Carling. The taller gray buildings are presumably the Adobe and Xerox towers at 333 Preston Street.  Off to the left of Preston, beyond the OTrain cut, are the CMPA office buildings and then the Botanica apartment buildings on the anticline — the geological rise up cause by the fault line.

It’s worth taking a minute to examine this drawing, and absorbing what is there now.

The second part of the drawing is proposed buildings. I am not sure who is proposing this build-out scenario. It might be the city, or it might be a developer. Nonetheless, the gap between the developer’s consultants and the city planners is not very wide in this neighborhood, so it’s probably fair to assume this isn’t some wild fantasy.

Start at the Bronson end of Carling again, and note the higher building beside the Fitzsimmon’s tower. Is this close, at Carling, or is it beyond, maybe the development proposed near McDonald’s on Bronson? There are rumours of high rises at the newly-vacated lot at Bell/Carling, but these aren’t on this profile. Nor, for that matter, are any developments on the soon-to-be-vacated and sold vacant lands scattered amongst the NRCan buildings.

There is the potential to create a urban sidewalk facade running from Cambridge to Sherwood, should all those high rises have commercial storefronts on the ground floor or second floors (to take advantage of lake views). Can we actually create a new mainstreet atmosphere here?

Preston  Street is shown clustered in the future with high rises. The Claridge 42 storey building is shown, and kitty corner across Preston is the Soho Italia tower at about 32 stories. Several high rises are shown on the current Dow Motors Honda site, which is several blocks large, and conveniently has no height limits, which might account for the 42 storey buildings shown there (Richcraft now owns the site). On the west side of the Otrain cut area the proposed Arnon high rises on the parking lot at Carling-Champagne, and beyond them the Soho Champagne twin towers and then the Ashcroft towers where the dog pound used to be. Domicile’s HOM condo is now shown just beyond the existing CMPA office buildings.

These drawings shown an interesting examination of current and possible future development related to the geography and geology of the area.

One tidbit for amusement: the Soho Italia excavation analysis (they are going five or six floors down for the garage)  refers to the site draining towards Dow’s Lake. Of course, it is the opposite. Dow’s Lake is uphill, held in place by a dam upon which QE Driveway now runs. The dam was burst once before, in 1900, to flood the lower Preston area and stop the Great Fire. It does make me wonder sometimes about the accuracy of other research that goes into building applications. For interest, stand on the Carling sidewalk and notice how the lawn goes UP to the lake. If you picnic on the grass, you can’t see the lake.

Tomorrow: a similar profile of heights and buildings, drawn from Gladstone to Carling. What high rise fantasies are to be found along Preston??

What condo buyers see

There’s a big flurry of condos going in around the Preston – OTrain corridor. There are obvious attractions, such as shopping and dining on the traditional main streets (Preston and Somerset/West Wellington). And easy access to the numbers one and two employment centres (downtown, Tunney’s Pasture) and minor ones such as NRCan, Agriculture, or Gatineau. And being on one or both of the  two major passenger rail transit lines, and Carling Avenue/Queensway for motorists.

But what will the residents see? Alas, I am unable to hold my camera up 23 stories, let alone 42, but here are some pictures from the top of the Adobe building at +/- 333 Preston, about 12 floors up. The views are interesting.

These pic were taken by a reader (thanks David !) in 2008, so a number of things have changed. Enjoy looking for the evolution of the neighborhood.

view northwards, adult HS playing fields and Qway in the foreground

(above) Preston is still four lanes, no fancy streetscaping, and maybe after this drought no trees or shrubs either since neither merchants nor residents seem inclined to spend even 50 cents watering anything

a closer view north, including Gatineau offices

the view that some will consider the “money shot”: the bright lights of the downtown high rises; but don’t forget the Qway is in the foreground

the other “money shot”: Dow’s Lake and the forest of the arboretum.

(above) The NRCan office tower is on the left, it is the equivalent of about 25 condo stories high. While slimmer, the 42 storey Claridge tower at 500 Preston (corner of Carling) will dominate the skyline, albeit with a more exciting exterior. The Feds are talking of twinning the existing office tower, hopefully with a better exterior. Not visible in the immediate foreground is a one block vacant lot owned by Arnon, ripe for a mixed use development similar to the Preston Square project. They also own the huge parking lot at 853 Carling — look for all the cars in the pic below, just in front of the John Carling building.

view southwest, including the soon-to-be-demolished Sir John Carling building, which (once asbestos is removed) should be refitted as a condo. Note that all the green grass in the foreground of the SJC building is already zoned mixed use development (NOT parkland)

(above) the two Domicile towers on Champagne are not yet built, nor the HOM building, or the two Soho towers or the Ashcroft towers, or Soho Preston, or the Dow Motors site (which has no height limit) nor 853 Carling which is currently zoned for high rise development.

view west: the large lot on the left side of the qway is already new housing, and the adjacent blocks are experiencing a feeding frenzy of infills

If any reader works in the NRCan highrise, or knows someone who does, I’d love to get some pic taken from the top floors of that building.

Owning the Podium

Much of Ottawa’s current discussion about high rises focusses on the podium, or base of the building. In theory, the wider larger base is all the pedestrian sees, and the thin elegant glass tower floats off into the sky after a generous set back.

Of course, this requires a fairly large lot or thin tower. What we increasingly see are small lot edifices, where either the tower is too fat for the base, or the podium effect is just sort of drawn onto the tower by a few horizontal bits of concrete trim. I stopped recently to look at the successfully done podium and tower condos at Richmond-Roosevelt, the western entrance to the Westboro commercial strip. For these buildings, the pedestrian view really is primarily of the podium. And the commercial spaces on the bottom floors really do enliven the streetscape. Podiums can work.

When the tower+podium design is not on a commercial mainstreet, it is common for neighbours and the city to demand that the podium consist of townhouse-type units. Supposedly these animate the street or courtyard level by the comings and goings of the residents and visitors. In fact, most times these apartments are also connected to the internal building corridors, and since the whole project is predicated on making corridors short with easy access to the garages and common facilities, these exterior doors become somewhat unused. Fake, in fact.

Unused ground level doors. When the internal corridor is more attractive to residents …

There is a major economic issue with these townhouse units. They are built out of concrete, just like the high rise above. This makes them very expensive per square foot, compared to freestanding townhouses. So the townhouse units on the Claridge podiums on LeBreton Flats got converted to one and two bedroom regular apartments.

Much was made of the Soho Champagne condo towers having a lively, townhouse base suitable and attractive for families. Alas that fantasy of little kids playing along the multi-user paths has also gone poof, as none of the townhouse units sold, and they have all been converted into one and two bedroom apartment condos, albeit with ground level “balconies” or patios. Now called “pathway suites” they are selling:

This set me to wondering if the condo developers really mind. Maybe they just want to sell the square feet of space. There is no point proposing a building that doesn’t get approved, nor of building a building if it doesn’t sell. So if the planners want them to put in townhouse units, draw them in. And keep in mind that they just may need to be changed to something else further down the line. And the neighbours who thought they won a big victory by insisting on townhouses, they may never notice.

Succumbing to cynicism, I expect condo promoters to market  their next project will have three bedroom family-sized apartments. This will mollify the NIMBYs somewhat. Get approval. Oops, they don’t sell. Reconfigure.

Somehow the planning promise of podiums is getting a bit nightmarish.

 

Height that you wish for …

At public meetings and in media discussions about how high is high enough, a frequent lament heard goes something like “it would be alright over there [insert name of place far from the person making the comment], but not here.”

For years, the Councillor and community groups working on the LeBreton Flats plans fought for an essentially low rise community. The final height limit for most of the buildings is seven stories (just like Paris !), with some towers on podiums extending to fourteen (not like Paris!).  The first phase, just built, has two towers on a very large seven story podium. The next phase, on which construction starts soon, will be almost all low rise, with the tallest bit being eight stories (recently upzoned from six)  and for the first time, some stacked towns type developments.

This hasn’t stopped everyone and their sister from proposing that any unwanted development go on the Flats. Put the new stadium there, “no one lives near there” was a cry from a certain affluent neighborhood activist. Just last week at the Downtown Moves PAC, someone suggested that the problem of STO buses on Wellington could be solved by putting them all down on the Flats, where “they wouldn’t bother anyone” (did this person know, or just guess, that is just what is most likely to happen with the STO Rapibus terminal at Bayview, converting the Prince of Wales railway bridge to a busway instead of rail for the O-Train?).

And just a month or so ago people at a public meeting in Hintonburg wanted Claridge to move their proposed condo tower at 1050 Somerset West over to the Flats.

Poor Dalhousie neighborhood and the adjacent Flats are the dumping ground for every project someone doesn’t want in their neighborhood. It will even have two LRT stations and surface-line LRT tracks. McKeller Park this place isn’t.

But things are looking up. Way up. Way way up.

First Starwood Mastercraft proposed the City’s tallest condo for Preston just north of Carling. They were forced to reduce the height a bit, to the mid-twenties. Then along came Claridge, with its proposal for a forty-five story condo at Preston/Carling. This has a much better chance of seeing the light of day ( and blocking it for those nearby) as the Bayview-Carling CDP is leaning towards massive upzoning along Carling from Cambridge to Champagne, to go with the tall rezonings along the OTrain corridor.

And now, a new proposal is going to council, promoting the City’s tallest office building(s) for the Dalhousie/Flats neighborhood.

More details — and pix — in the next post.

View northwest from somewhere above Preston – Somerset intersection showing proposed high-rise intensification. From the Bayview-Carling CDP.