Category Archives: LeBreton Flats

How intrusive will WLRT wiring be along the parkway?

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On a recent visit to Toronto, I made a point of noticing overhead electric wiring for streetcars. My general memory of streetcar wiring was situations like the one pictured above, a spagetti heap of wiring over an intersection.

Of course, such situations occur when different streetcar lines meet. And for the Ottawa case, the LRT is a single line with no branches or loops or turnoffs, so wiring situations like the above just won’t be here [yes, there will be a spur line off to the maintenance yard, and in a few cases parallel tracks to store trains, but these will be no where as a common as streetcar intersections are].

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In Toronto, the overhead wiring running up the centre of the street above the track is supported by cross wires, running from one side of the street to the other. It quickly became apparent to me that the really visible part of the wiring was that running parallel to the street, from post to post, above the sidewalk. This was a tangle of thicker cables, messy connections, utility boxes, etc, whereas the single strand up the centre line I had to search for.

During the first WLRT public meeting last month, angry Westboroites claimed the City had fixed the pictures to hide the overhead wiring, to make it invisible, whereas it was sure to be a visual nightmare. After a few times pointing out that the pictures did have the wiring on them, to jeers from the audience, the consultant gave up and just let the audience wallow in their anger.

Fact was, one had to squint really closely to actually see the wire, which may be a factor of enlarging the photo, or maybe, just maybe, the wiring isn’t all this visible. Ergo, my inspection of the scene overhead Toronto streets.

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The above pic is a view along the Spadina streetcar line. The Spadina line is modern, running down the centre boulevard, with some landscaping and curbing elements. The overhead wiring was again visible mainly by looking for it, and accentuated here by using a zoom picture. Some of the overhead signs on the wires related to the LRT line and others to traffic movements on the road lanes. If those signs weren’t hanging on the wires, they would have been put up on freestanding posts.

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In front of the AGO, the wiring was actually hung on the frame of the new building. It made for a wonderfully clear sidewalk, and I think it quite bold that the planners / architects or whomever actually allowed the wires to be attached to a significant public building we are all supposed to be admiring. I can’t see Ottawan’s welcoming wiring anchored to our new convention centre, or the NCC ever agreeing to such a practical solution if other, hugely expensive alternatives are around. Here is a closer picture:

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It is very noticeable that the wiring is underground only on one side of the street. On the north side, the old posts continue, including some real monsters:

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The question of what the posts along Ottawa’s new LRT will look like may have been discussed with the NCC but I am not priveleged to that conversation. I do recall how nicely redesigned the red light camera posts are in front of the War Museum compared to elsewhere in the city. So I expect the NCC  will be very keen to approve the posts holding up the wires if the Western LRT skims the edge of the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway.

Maybe someone will even be concerned about how they will look going through condoville on LeBreton Flats. Claridge and the NCC’s third building is now going up on the Flats, and has a direct view of the wiring between the LeBreton Station and the tunnel portal under the cliff at Queen Street.

Interestingly, the NCC has shown (thus far) no interest in what the trackbed will look like when viewed from all those condos they hope to develop on the Flats, but I suspect their level of interest will be much higher when it comes to the sacred green blades viewed by motorists on the Parkway.

Sir John just might be rolling in his grave — for various reasons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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Distilling Our Lady of the Condos – part ii

Last winter, Domtar knocked down an elderly mill building on the Islands in the Ottawa River. Great consternation arose, as they did it Without Consulting the Bureaucrats. Priceless heritage lost!

Like a dog with a bone, the media and planning pundits worried about the lost potential for a vibrant outdoorsy urban waterfront à la Granville Island or The Distillery in Toronto. Few people seemed to notice that Victoria Island is one of the windiest, coldest, bleakest spots in Ottawa, a far remove from sunny* Granville Island or the spirits factory in Toronto. Numerous calls were made for the Distillery Folks to come to Ottawa and Save Our Historic Neighborhood.

I had visited the Distillery District in Toronto last year. It was a rainy day when I visited. I didn’t come away quite as enthused as other observers; it was too much a tourist theme park rather than a real neighborhood (such as the Danforth). That might come in time, though, as urban renewal migrated east of the downtown core.

So a few weeks ago, I dutifully trotted over to take a gander at the Famous Place. It is indeed well done. I kept thinking of Victoria Island and also of Our Lady of the Condos on Richmond Road. What would the convent site in Westboro be like if the Distillery Corporation had bought it?

This dramatic modern interpretation of a flatiron building greets visitors walking from the downtown. Unflinchingly modern, it perches cheek-by-jowel with the original Distillery structures.

Now, as the Friendly Giant might say, Look Up. Way way up:

 

Yup, that’s one big highrise. And it’s not the only one. Here’s a bird’s eye view of the block, courtesy of Google. Notice how close the very high rises are to the antique Distillery heritage structures. can you imagine Ottawans or our planning folks saying this is compatible development? Our community associations would explode in a burst of dust.

 

 

the google view doesn’t quite capture the actual height contrast between the old and new, so here is another angle:

And yet, on the ground, in the Distillery precinct itself, the walking environment is pleasant, the view primarily of the podiums and low rises, with the glass towers somewhat receding and by no means omnipresent or hulking over the place like some overpowering manifestation of Nasty Developer Greed.

Here is the latest tower going up right at the eastern edge of the Distillery buildings, as of yesterday:

So what if Ashcroft proposes a forty storey glass condo to replace the much-maligned four storey seniors residence on the south side of the convent site in Westboro? Would it “ruin” the site? Would the contrast “destroy” the heritage? Would the car traffic render Westboro chaos? (note that these Toronto towers plus a bunch more proposed ones exit onto ordinary city streets similar to Richmond Road and Byron. There is no subway presence in the area, but like Westboro an LRT is on the way).

The Distillery neighborhood gives me great pause to ponder the merit of high rise vs low rise intensification arguments. And puts the Lansdowne and Convent site controversies into a different context. Do we really want the Distillery folks to redevelop Victoria Island? Or the convent? Let’s be a bit more careful about what we wish for.

Perhaps we should have had a wide-open international competition for those sites, where proponents would be invited to come up with their own land use mix and urban developments. Might have been interesting.

But naah, we are much too timid to allow that. We’d get something else … say Lansdowne Park, or LeBreton Flats…

 

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*sarcasm. irony. whatever.

 

 

 

 

Feelin’ drained on a hot summer day

The aqueduct through LeBreton Flats is a sadly neglected city feature. The last time a maintenance crew did anything around there was just before all the politicians showed up to unveil the plaques declaring this an ever-so-valuable heritage site to be proud of. Then they all skedaddled, never to to be seen again.

Alas, the plantings along the aqueduct are totally neglected, the trees mostly dead (even right beside a water supply !) and a few years ago the city decided to run a giant water pipe through the aqueduct water because it was cheap. Heritage smeritage.

On Monday, the aqueduct was drained, leaving this view:

The city plans for the aqueduct to be its showcase heart of public parkland running through the vibrant, multi-ethnic, varied income, etc etc neighborhood of the future. One would think, therefore, that they might plant trees today so that when the adjacent houses are built (in maybe 2050) the canal and bike paths would be lined with mature trees. Imagine, an inviting space !

But no, in Ottawa planning doesn’t mean doing something now so its ready for the future. It means identifying the future need and ensuring no money is spent until the year after the people actually move in. I’ve mentioned before its a funny way to build a bike path and pedestrian circulation network, one short segment at a time, rather useless until the very last parcel is developed and the last bits are put in.

Planning has been corrupted to justify doing nothing until the last minute.

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??

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.

 

City’s tallest office towers proposed for west side

Phoenix DCR is going to Council in August seeking rezoning of the parcel of land known as 801 Albert Street. They are proposing a 34 storey office tower; a 31 storey office tower, and a 7 storey office tower. Currently, the tallest office buildings in Ottawa are Place de Ville at 29 stories and Place Bell, both in the downtown core.

The parcel of land they propose to build these on is right across Albert Street from the existing Bayview transit station and the adjacent OTrain station. The triangular parcel of land is immediately north of the 8 storey City Centre office tower (the City Centre site has long been OK’d for developments in the 8 to 22 storey range), where City Centre Ave meets Albert. The site is bounded on the west by the OTrain line and new north-south multi-user path (bike path) on which construction begins later this month.

Here is a bird’s-eye view of the triangular site, located immediately south of (ie above) the word Bayview  (station). Our bird is flying somewhere above the Ottawa River, looking south:

The proposed office towers would have about 1.3 million square feet of space. The site is very difficult to develop, being crisscrossed with sewers and water mains. The developer was pushed off by the city back in 2010 when they initially sought rezoning, pending completion of studies about the condition of the infrastructure and the possibility of relocating some of the pipes (one pipe is to be relocated by the developer).

The aerial view below reverts to a more conventional view with north to the top of the picture.

The closest residential housing to the site is immediately east (right), the townhouses of Walnut Court.

Working closely with city planners, Phoenix has managed to insert three buildings between the pipe rights of way. They are well set back from Albert due to a major pipe crossing the site just south of Albert. They used this setback zone to create a forecourt for motorists arriving at the site.

The three buildings would only have 275 parking spaces in the four-level garage, and 22 on the surface, for somewhere around 5 – 6,000 employees. This is truly a transit-oriented development, dependent on the east-west LRT and north-south OTrain for all the employees to arrive. The buildings are designed for single occupancy, ie the Feds, with secure loading zones and mail rooms, etc. Recall that Federal buildings do not, as a rule, include much parking.

Proposed office towers, bird’s-eye view from the north-west, looking south. Albert Street is in the foreground, the City Centre complex is behind these buildings; the OTrain is to the right.

The building relates well to the adjacent streets. Residents and community associations put a lot of work into the CDP regarding this site. We wanted buildings to relate to the Albert Street grade on the north; and the much lower City Centre and O-Train grades on the south and west. This project has the auto court on the Albert level; and major pedestrian and cyclist entrances on the west at O-Train level, with direct access into the new Bayview Station at O-track level. Thus crowds of pedestrians needn’t be crossing Albert at 3pm every day… southbound and westbound travellers will find the shortest route via the ped path at OTrain level; eastbound travellers might go either via the path or cross the street.

The two tallest towers are linked above grade, and at grade by a lobby. The CDP calls for open access through the Phoenix site to the south, so that residents or workers at the (future) City Centre site will also have direct access to Albert and the transit station; although the new emphasis on the O-Train level as a pedestrian spine might reduce that need.

The south side of the building has some surface parking and garage entrances. According to site plans community members saw at a preview last September, the south side is being designed to simulate a street environment, with curbside parking, and the sidewalk along the south side will connect directly from City Centre/Albert intersection through the site to a new ped bridge over the OTrain connecting to the former Wellington right of way into Hintonburg (the bridge that used to be there was removed in 1970) . Phoenix is offering funding for the ped bridge and seems cognizant for making the south side pedestrian friendly and safe.

Most people tend to view the 5.3 acre triangular site as being “in a hole”, but it isn’t really. The problem is that Albert Street rises up on an earthen embankment to its bridge over the OTrain. The service ramp to the City Centre building has a similar slope; and then further south Somerset Street is also raised on a viaduct. But the Phoenix site is at the same elevation as Primrose, Elm, and Spruce Streets, and the City Centre site, and Tom Brown arena, Bayview Yards, and most of LeBreton Flats. I am confident that when / if built up as per this proposal the landscape will look and feel natural.

When the Dalhousie and Hintonburg CA’s, plus representatives from Walnut Court (townhouses immediately east of the site), met the developers last September, there was considerable scepticism that the suggested buildings did look nice but would the final buildings actually look like that? In particular, the innovative second skin of coloured glass panels on the north façade looked expendable should the developer need to cut costs.

In the rezoning application, the proponent wants to “shrink wrap” the buildings as proposed, so the exact saw-tooth south façade and building shapes and locations would be approved but any changes would require council approval (rezoning). Would this include the exterior as shown? We don’t know.

The preview session also raised some concerns about the west façade (no pic available) which is precast concrete punched with windows. The concrete surface was required to meet LEED standards and to reduce solar gain from the western sun.

The CA’s generally approved of the traffic access and signals as suggested. We felt the driveways would work as shown, for the traffic volumes projected. However, the parking needs to be almost all short-term parking, not monthly rentals, since if the garage is full of monthly parkers then day-parkers will flood the neighborhood. And the building, as planned, is only useful for Federal tenancy, since any other use, such as condos or a hotel, would require a lot more parking and more road access than is feasible to provide. We are also concerned that the relationship of the site to Albert Street be urban and not encourage motorists to speed up due to the large scale surroundings.

The ground level of the building has a horizontal “arcade” of white concrete across the front to provide eye-level interest. Personally, I’d like to see that extend out from the northwest corner of the building out to Albert Street, to more fully enclose the courtyard. There will be the usual food court and services inside.

As presently proposed, the building seems isolated and the surroundings bleak. It is certainly not part of any downtown or mainstreet fabric. But then, it wouldn’t fit well on any traditional mainstreet (West Wellington? Preston? Somerset?) due to its size. It is much more like the Tunney’s Pasture buildings, which are towers-in-a-bunny-field adjacent a rapid transit station. There is, however, the possibility of developing a more cohesive and usable high-rise neighborhood when the City Centre site is redeveloped and a pedestrian spine is required to run north-south from Somerset to Bayview Station.

The seven storey building on the east, the most triangular one, is  a meeting centre with conference rooms around some sort of atrium. Or, it could be office space. These are details to be worked out should the developer find a tenant, because this complex won’t be built unless they have a pre-signed tenant for all of the space in at least one tower.

The shadows thrown from these towers will go a long way in the winter. Fortunately, they go north, where there is no existing or proposed residential uses. The late afternoon western sun may throw a shadow onto the adjacent Walnut Court, Primrose, and Elm residential areas (the existing Tunney’s Pasture buildings do that already). Unfortunately, the shadow study doesn’t include late afternoon projections, despite Community Association requests:

 Summary: The site for this development is difficult to design well, and the proposed rezoning is highly dependent on the buildings being exactly as shown, and for a single tenancy office use. The quality of the ped and cyclist access via the western frontage is crucial for the easy movement of the six thousand workers to and from the Bayview Station.