Parks, Plazas and Open Spaces

[J.OT13]

Browsing the Ottawa Business Journal website today, I was reminded of one of Downtown's great public spaces; the World Exchange Plaza (WEP)'s outdoor space.

Although we have a near limitless amount of parks, grassy open areas and walking paths along our waterways, we have very few spaces to breath within the urban core. The Central Business District in particular quite oppressive, with lot-line to lot-line towers of pretty much the same height. Other than the WEP, we have Place de Ville I (PdV)'s park space, but when the fountain was removed, it made it quite bland and generic. The plaza at PdV II is nothing more than concrete pavers with a few benches. The newest plan to revitalize Sparks seems to take an interesting path, making each block more of a "park" space as opposed to the current pavers and a handful of planters (a lot like PdV II). L'Esplanade's plaza is terrible. Minto Place left an open space, including an interesting art piece (tea kettle/tree), but it is used for a restaurant terrace. One of the better additions in recent years is the parkette and publicly accessible roof-top terrace at Morguard's Performance Court.

The City has added new open space in the Market area, such as the William Street terrace and Ogilvy Plaza. They've made some improvements to the York Street Terrace and the plaza in front of the Market Building on George. Significant work is coming to William, as part of Downtown Rideau's long awaited revitalization.

There are a few others, but nothing of great significance.

What other great open spaces do we have in the city? What developers place some importance on the public realm, and not just the bottom line? Should more be added and where? Should we be looking at more roof top parks and terraces?