General Update/Rumour thread [Urban Ottawa]

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by Jayday23

Is that part of the gladstone village development?

Yes

[danishh]

East of the tracks is Gladstone village, west is Trinity's Gladstone development.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by danishh

East of the tracks is Gladstone village, west is Trinity's Gladstone development.

Is there anything like a timeframe for the development of "Gladstone Village"?

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by Jayday23

Was looking at images at Councillor Fleury's twitter and i stumbled upon this:


What is that future massive Plouffe Park development that stretches from Gladstone to Somerset on the left? Is that part of the gladstone village development?

I couldn't see the image you posted, so I rehosted it to make it visible to all.

[Baigle]

With that much future low income Ottawa housing concentrated in a small area would this not be creating a ghetto? I thought that social housing was moving away from these large concentrated projects. I personally would want to avoid living that close to such large Ottawa Housing complexes.

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Is there anything like a timeframe for the development of "Gladstone Village"?

I don't think it is in the near-term - they are developing Rochester Heights first.

[OTSkyline]

Does anyone know who owns this large lot at the corner of Bank & Walkley and if there's ever been something proposed?

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3724182,-75.6631921,130a,35y,206.25h,59.11t/data=!3m1!1e3

It's a huge corner lot at the intersection of two major roads, has great transit access (with buses on Bank, and the transitway and future Walkley LRT station mere meters)... I can't imagine Value Village is paying premium rents to make this lot as profitable as it can be... just seems like a wasted opportunity. Would be prime location for a lot more density and mix of condos/rentals/office!

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

Does anyone know who owns this large lot at the corner of Bank & Walkley and if there's ever been something proposed?

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3724182,-75.6631921,130a,35y,206.25h,59.11t/data=!3m1!1e3

It's a huge corner lot at the intersection of two major roads, has great transit access (with buses on Bank, and the transitway and future Walkley LRT station mere meters)... I can't imagine Value Village is paying premium rents to make this lot as profitable as it can be... just seems like a wasted opportunity. Would be prime location for a lot more density and mix of condos/rentals/office!

I always get Bank/Walkley and Bank/Heron mixed up, especially because they both have large Shoppers Drug Marts, 1 km apart. At least we know another Shoppers Drug Mart won't go in there

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

Does anyone know who owns this large lot at the corner of Bank & Walkley and if there's ever been something proposed?

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3724182,-75.6631921,130a,35y,206.25h,59.11t/data=!3m1!1e3

It's a huge corner lot at the intersection of two major roads, has great transit access (with buses on Bank, and the transitway and future Walkley LRT station mere meters)... I can't imagine Value Village is paying premium rents to make this lot as profitable as it can be... just seems like a wasted opportunity. Would be prime location for a lot more density and mix of condos/rentals/office!

So many parking spaces, so little... frequentation.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

Does anyone know who owns this large lot at the corner of Bank & Walkley and if there's ever been something proposed?

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3724182,-75.6631921,130a,35y,206.25h,59.11t/data=!3m1!1e3

It's a huge corner lot at the intersection of two major roads, has great transit access (with buses on Bank, and the transitway and future Walkley LRT station mere meters)... I can't imagine Value Village is paying premium rents to make this lot as profitable as it can be... just seems like a wasted opportunity. Would be prime location for a lot more density and mix of condos/rentals/office!

Probably a lot of contamination. It was a gas station location for decades. Not much different from Bank and Riverside, a former gas station.

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

Does anyone know who owns this large lot at the corner of Bank & Walkley and if there's ever been something proposed?

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3724182,-75.6631921,130a,35y,206.25h,59.11t/data=!3m1!1e3

It's a huge corner lot at the intersection of two major roads, has great transit access (with buses on Bank, and the transitway and future Walkley LRT station mere meters)... I can't imagine Value Village is paying premium rents to make this lot as profitable as it can be... just seems like a wasted opportunity. Would be prime location for a lot more density and mix of condos/rentals/office!

Nothing for this site... I'm sure development in this area will accelerate following Stage 2, especially rental units to serve Carleton.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

Does anyone know who owns this large lot at the corner of Bank & Walkley and if there's ever been something proposed?

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3724182,-75.6631921,130a,35y,206.25h,59.11t/data=!3m1!1e3

It's a huge corner lot at the intersection of two major roads, has great transit access (with buses on Bank, and the transitway and future Walkley LRT station mere meters)... I can't imagine Value Village is paying premium rents to make this lot as profitable as it can be... just seems like a wasted opportunity. Would be prime location for a lot more density and mix of condos/rentals/office!

Yep, that's a site that is crying out for re-development.

I'd like to see the LCBO site in this area re-develop as well. Maybe the site you're referring to would make a good location for a new LCBO retail store, while the distribution warehouse could move to an industrial park.

[rocketphish]

City of Ottawa announces data-sharing plan with Google’s Waze app

By: Techopia Staff
Published: Dec 12, 2019 3:58pm EST

Ottawa will join other major North American cities in sharing traffic data with Google’s Waze app, the city announced Thursday.

Waze provides drivers with crowd-sourced, real-time information to help avoid construction, accidents and other delays on the road.

Ottawa will join Toronto, Montreal, New York and San Francisco in the Waze for Cities program. A release states that with city data fed directly into the program, Waze will provide Ottawa-based users with a “more comprehensive” picture of road closures and detours. The exchange goes both ways, with the Silicon Valley company also sharing data to inform the city of any incidents on Ottawa roads.

The Waze partnership is presented as a new initiative for Ottawa’s Smart City strategy, which seeks to combine public data and connected technologies to improve municipal services. The city officially put its Smart City 2.0 plan into effect in 2017.

Privacy observers have raised red flags about the data collection concerns inherent to many smart city initiatives, including sharing that information with private companies. Sidewalk Labs, a Google sister company, has been the subject of immense scrutiny for its plans to build a smart neighbourhood on the Toronto waterfront.

“There’s a whole web of data that is being collected in our cities, and it all raises governance questions, but it doesn’t seem to attract as much attention as it really should,” Teresa Scassa, the Canada Research Chair in Information Law and Privacy at the University of Ottawa, told OBJ earlier this year.

Marc Ren​é de Cotret, who leads Ottawa’s Smart City 2.0 initiative, has said the city consults with privacy law experts to ensure it adheres to proper regulations before enacting such programs.

https://obj.ca/techopia-ottawa-sharing-data-google-waze-app

[Wilsky25]

Heard through the grapevine (Stittsville GoodLife employees) that Goodlife purchased the old Zellers/Target location in the Hazeldean Mall and it will become the largest Goodlife in Ottawa at 50,000 sqft.

Quite excited, and assume they would close the current location on Hazeldean.

This may also help with foot traffic in the mall, which has been sorely hurting for... forever.

[SkeggsEggs]

Originally Posted by Wilsky25

Heard through the grapevine (Stittsville GoodLife employees) that Goodlife purchased the old Zellers/Target location in the Hazeldean Mall and it will become the largest Goodlife in Ottawa at 50,000 sqft.

Quite excited, and assume they would close the current location on Hazeldean.

This may also help with foot traffic in the mall, which has been sorely hurting for... forever.

https://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=147219&page=23

You heard correct! OBJ article at post #449!

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Anyone else notice we have a really bad problem with buildings with their names on them? Throughout Ottawa, you can find a bunch of buildings with their names or owners blazoned on the top. Novotel, Andaz, Claridge, Nuovo, Westin, etc. It's really feeling like we do it far more often than other cities.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Jamaican-Phoenix

Anyone else notice we have a really bad problem with buildings with their names on them? Throughout Ottawa, you can find a bunch of buildings with their names or owners blazoned on the top. Novotel, Andaz, Claridge, Nuovo, Westin, etc. It's really feeling like we do it far more often than other cities.

I always had the impression we do it less. This is something that is usually done by big corporations (which we have few of) and hotels (which we have plenty of). I do find it odd on a residential buildings. That trend might have started with the SoHo buildings.

[J.OT13]

Backwards-ass city. The National Portrait Gallery, which should have gone in the old U.S. Embassy might go the LeBreton and the Indigenous Centre, which should be at LeBreton (or Victoria Island) has taken over the former U.S. Embassy.

Pitch for National Portrait Gallery reaches feasibility stage

Aedan Helmer
Postmedia
December 23, 2019

About 2,000 of the works are being housed in secure storage vaults at the Library and Archives Canada preservation facility in Gatineau.

The push to add a National Portrait Gallery to the capital’s “constellation” of cultural institutions has reached its next stage with a feasibility report prepared by a citizen-led advisory board.

The report includes the proposed gallery’s preliminary concept, with a more detailed operational and business plan to come once the first major hurdle is cleared: finding a site to house the precious portrait collection.

About 2,000 of the works, owned by Library and Archives Canada, are being housed in its secure storage vaults at a preservation facility in Gatineau after a years-long push to convert the former U.S. Embassy on Wellington Street fell through.

“This is going back 20 years,” Lawson Hunter, the group’s senior counsel, said in a phone interview.

“The idea is to create the gallery and a presence through a public-private partnership, and we are continuing to talk to the government both at the political and bureaucratic level, and obviously now it’s a question of the site.

“We will look at temporary sites, and there’s no reason why we can’t do some programming online while we wait.”

Hunter says the group is engaging with various entities about a site in Ottawa and, significantly, he has met several times with representatives of the National Capital Commission, which happens to have prime waterfront property in development at LeBreton Flats and is still seeking high-profile tenants.

“We’re talking to people about a site in Ottawa, and obviously lots of people are talking about LeBreton,” Hunter said. “If you look at their master plan, there are two or three places already where a portrait gallery might go, and it would fit in with their long-term plan.

“But, to be honest, this is going to take time to have the ‘real deal’ of a proper-sized building, and of course being dependent on government support.”

Hunter recounted the early optimism behind the initial push for a portrait gallery to “complete the constellation” of museums and galleries in Ottawa.

But the winds of political change eventually blew away that plan after a study questioned whether the gallery should even be located in Ottawa, or in another Canadian city, with Calgary prominently among the municipalities that submitted proposals.

The government decided in 2009 that none of the proposals fit the requirements and “canned the project,” Lawson said, so the building at 100 Wellington St. continued to sit vacant until it was converted into a space for Indigenous Peoples.

Hunter, who had served as chair of the board of the Ottawa Art Gallery, with his term there about to end with the grand opening of that long-anticipated downtown space, decided in 2017 to get involved in the push for the portrait gallery.

He was enlisted among a group of interested arts-minded citizens who formed an advisory board with the goal of developing “a world-class, 21st century portrait gallery for Canada.”

In 2018, the board joined forces with the venerable Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and the renowned Toronto-based museum-planning firm Lord Cultural Resources, which drafted the recent feasibility study.

In a letter penned by Lawson accompanying the report, he cites a recent Ipsos poll showing two-thirds of Canadians favour the project

“We envision something much different, something that challenges the traditional,” the letter pledges. “We imagine an immersive, interactive and thought-provoking space, one that is accessible and enhanced through technology, essentially a gallery that is bolder and more innovative.

“From indigenous peoples to early settlers, inventors to athletes, activists to artists, feminist trailblazers to political movers and shakers, a collection of portraits will offer a panoramic view of Canada’s past, present and future, and illuminate the diversity that makes up our identity…

“Each step brings us closer to the realization of a longstanding dream: a new kind of portrait gallery that connects Canadians to each other and serves as a beacon to the world.”

https://ottawasun.com/news/portrait-gall...wcm/da62227d-50b7-4372-9b94-32764cfc62aa

[kevinbottawa]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Backwards-ass city. The National Portrait Gallery, which should have gone in the old U.S. Embassy might go the LeBreton and the Indigenous Centre, which should be at LeBreton (or Victoria Island) has taken over the former U.S. Embassy.

I've always thought the Indigenous centre in the old U.S. embassy was a stupid idea. The classic architecture definitely better suits a portrait gallery and it makes more sense to give Indigenous people a building with architecture and a location that better suits an Indigenous use. I don't understand why more people aren't pissed off about this.

[acottawa]

I have never understood this fixation with having a building called "National Portrait Gallery," to house LAC's photo collection; to me it is just a symptom of Ottawa's massive inferiority complex.

Anyway, they are in the process of building a library to host LAC's various collections, so I think this latest quest is likely to go nowhere.