New UOttawa Bldg Underway on King Edward

LeadingEdgeBoomer · #1 Posted **Mar 13, 2011, 2:03 PM**

I think most regulars here would remember that the city approved a uOttawa plan to redevelop King Edward from Laurier to Mann av. They did it a couple of years ago.

The first new building is underway. It is near , but not right at , Templeton , It is across from the Power Plant at 700 King Edward . They have put up a fence and started to dig a hole in the ground. A sign at the site says that it will be a three story "research lab and academic facility".

I can not find any info about it on the uOttawa web site. Nor have I come across a rendering of what it will look like.

Perhaps some one else reading this knows more about it?

c_speed3108 · #2 Posted **Mar 14, 2011, 3:58 PM**

No idea yet...almost sounds semi-temporary.

spotlight · #3 Posted **Mar 15, 2011, 3:48 PM**

This building is not part of the King Edward artery project of the university..This is a one off building that is being built to accommodate a new very large piece of research equipment.. One of the professors received a grant for this piece of equipment and there was no space available in any of the existing buildings to accommodate this equipment... so they are essentially building this specifically to house this equipment and the labs and offices for the researchers that will be working on it.

LeadingEdgeBoomer · #4 Posted **Mar 15, 2011, 4:54 PM**

This research lab building may not be part of the original plans for the King Edward artery ,but it is part of it now. It is three stories tall and 3,277 sq meters of space.

While I could find no details of it in the university web site--it is listed in this years capital budget. About 5.5 million dollars if I am interpreting the document correctly.

It must be a very important , and well funded, research project if the university is dedicating a building to it. I would imagine that the project would end some years down the road and the building then put to another use.

If my memory is correct, the city approved up to six story buildings for the corners of each block of this stretch of King Edward, and two to four story buildings in between. So, this three story building will be consistent with that plan.

peteotown · #5 Posted **Apr 27, 2011, 7:44 PM**

Found some info on the City Applications site:

Quote:

The University is proposing to develop the site with a post secondary educational institution, namely the Center for Advanced Photonics and Environmental Analysis (CAPEA) Facility. Cross-disciplinary research and academic activities will occur within this building, including engineering, chemistry, physics, biology and earth sciences.

http://app01.ottawa.ca/postingplans/appDetails.jsf?lang=en&appId=__7FXN5Z

Via google search:
Site Plan
South Elevations
West Elevation
East Elevation

LeadingEdgeBoomer · #6 Posted **Apr 28, 2011, 12:32 AM**

Thanks for finding the site plan peteotown.

The building is going to cover more surface area than I thought-being l-shaped and with frontage both on King Edward and on Templeton. So it is a corner building.

Looks like the university is making a major thrust into photonic research.

They have a web site for THE Centre for Research in Photonics at University of Ottawa --CRPuO--- http://www.photonics.uottawa.ca/featured_projects.shtml

Here is a summary from that site of the research areas CRPuO is involved in.

Quote:

Photonics is the science of light; it is the technology of generating and harnessing light and other forms of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon.

The science includes light emission, transmission, deflection, amplification and detection by optical components and instruments, lasers and other light sources, fiber optics, electro-optical instrumentation, related hardware and electronics, and sophisticated systems.

The research areas covered by the CRPuO can be broadly classified as:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Foundations

•Optical physics
•Nanoscience
•Biomedicine

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Broadband for all

•Agile networks
•Microwave Photonics
•Embedded photonic systems
•Emerging device technologies

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Solar Energy

•High efficiency photovoltaics

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Instrumenting the world

•Sensors
•Sensor networks

LeadingEdgeBoomer · #7 Posted **Mar 1, 2012, 5:50 PM**

New fencing and other signs that this building is finally going to get underway this month.

A reason for the delay --it was changed from a three story building to a five story one to optimize the use of the land underneath. Cost 55 million.

Has anyone seen a rendering of the new five story design?

Harley613 · #8 Posted **Mar 2, 2012, 6:16 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeadingEdgeBoomer

A reason for the delay --it was changed from a three story building to a five story one to optimize the use of the land underneath. Cost 55 million.

wowzers...hadn't heard about that. this building is going to be massive. It'll be a nice addition, it'll make the campus more cohesive. Driving down King Edward will literally be driving through the Uni soon.

LeadingEdgeBoomer · #9 Posted **Mar 2, 2012, 8:03 PM**

Harley wrote

Quote:

wowzers...hadn't heard about that. this building is going to be massive. It'll be a nice addition, it'll make the campus more cohesive. Driving down King Edward will literally be driving through the Uni soon.

You actually already are. 80+ percent of the land along King Eddy from Mann Av to Laurier st is already owned by the university. On both sides of the street.

More than two years ago the uni presented a proposal to the city with a general outline as to what they want to do with King Eddy. It was approved.
Over the next several years you will see some new stuff appear, and some of the old houses the university has disapppear, along this stretch. This new Photonics Lab is item number one and conforms to the plan the uni submitted to the city.

toaster · #10 Posted **Mar 4, 2012, 2:21 PM**

It will be good to get more students to the east side of Campus, as it is still an area that is not very busy (compared to the centre and west). The only thing I'd like to see is a pedestrian overpass over King Edward.

Uhuniau · #11 Posted **Mar 5, 2012, 5:08 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by toaster

It will be good to get more students to the east side of Campus, as it is still an area that is not very busy (compared to the centre and west). The only thing I'd like to see is a pedestrian overpass over King Edward.

Good god no.

toaster · #12 Posted **Mar 5, 2012, 2:52 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Good god no.

I know it may not be the best thing for street life, although who are we kidding, there isn't much there anyway. There needs to be more convenient crossing. The lights at Desmarais are a good example, they switch about every 20 seconds in both directions, which allows for less waiting times for pedestrians. The lights at Sports Complex, traffic on King Edward probably gets about 2-3 minutes, and those crossing King Edward get 30 seconds tops.

McKellarDweller · #13 Posted **Mar 5, 2012, 4:18 PM**

I thought about the overpass too, but I can't honestly see too many students from ground level climbing a flight of stairs just to cross a two-lane street, and I'd say all the east-west pedestrian traffic isn't concentrated in one space enough to justify a bridge.

LeadingEdgeBoomer · #14 Posted **Mar 5, 2012, 4:42 PM**

Quote:

I know it may not be the best thing for street life, although who are we kidding, there isn't much there anyway. There needs to be more convenient crossing. The lights at Desmarais are a good example, they switch about every 20 seconds in both directions, which allows for less waiting times for pedestrians. The lights at Sports Complex, traffic on King Edward probably gets about 2-3 minutes, and those crossing King Edward get 30 seconds tops

.

Peeps do not seem to like the looks of those
overpasses over heavily travelled streets. If one must have a dedicated crossing maybe they should consider a tunnel or two as new buildings are built. But I am not sure that that is really necessary either.

As far as no street life there , for sure---( except maybe the patio at Father and Sons during the warmer months).

That may change in a decade or so.

The simplified. general plan that the uni had approved by the city said this.

--buildings of 4-6 stories at the intersections, the five story photonics lab building conforms with this.

--Buildings of 2-4 stories between the intersections.

--the ground floor King Eddy fronts should be rented to businesses that provide goods and services of interest to both the university community and sandy Hill community.
As far as I know, the Photonics lab building will not conform to this aspect. However, if future buildings do, it should create more street life along King Eddy's University precinct.

One of the few properties on this stretch of King Eddy that is not owned by uOttawa is the oddly coloured Candy Residence. Basically it is suites to rent, short or longer term, with the landlord owner living on the ground floor. I wonder how it will fair as King Eddy is redevloped.

www.candyresidence.com

LeadingEdgeBoomer · #15 Posted **Apr 7, 2012, 1:04 PM**

The building at 43 Templeton has now been demolished to make way for this new one.

peteotown · #16 Posted **May 4, 2012, 3:08 AM**

From Photonics Spectra

Quote:

Making Ottawa the world’s photonics center
Melinda A. Rose, [email protected]
OTTAWA, Ontario, Canada –
“[Photonics] is having a transformative impact on our daily lives, from bar codes to flat-screen televisions, from advanced laser surgery to telemedicine and sophisticated security systems. I am sure that is why the city has included photonics among its key priorities in its new economic development plan.” – Allan Rock, University of Ottawa

A $55 million photonics center that was expected to break ground on the University of Ottawa campus in March will help fulfill the school’s goal to make Ottawa the global hub of photonics.

The five-story Centre for Advanced Photonics and Environmental Analysis (CAPEA) will house specialized labs and equipment and will attract the world’s outstanding researchers in the fields, university President Allan Rock said at a mayor’s breakfast sponsored by the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce and the Ottawa Business Journal on Feb. 23. The center will also house Canada’s only accelerator mass spectrometer for conducting research in photonics and environmental analysis.

Photonics “is having a transformative impact on our daily lives,” Rock said, “from bar codes to flat-screen televisions, from advanced laser surgery to telemedicine and sophisticated security systems. I am sure that is why the city has included photonics among its key priorities in its new economic development plan.”

Both the university and the Canadian government have been positioning Ottawa as one of the world’s best optics and photonics research centers for several years.

In May 2010, $10 million in government funding allowed the university to recruit quantum optics and photonics pioneer Robert W. Boyd as its inaugural Canada Excellence Research Chair in Quantum Nonlinear Optics.

Boyd was wooed from the University of Rochester, where he had worked for more than 30 years, to establish a world-class quantum nonlinear optics program at Ottawa. One of his first projects at Ottawa was co-organizing the Quantum Photonics Seminar Series, bringing leaders in the field to the university for lectures and discussions.

A primary focus of the center’s research program under Boyd is “slow light,” caused when light travels hundreds of times slower than the speed of light in a vacuum.

Slowing light’s speed by using specially fabricated photonic crystals could lead to spectrometers of unprecedented precision for environmental sensing, another key research area for the center.

“By using nanostructured materials, we can create novel structures and devices to create slow light, which can have applications in areas like telecommunications and laser radar,” Boyd said.

In November 2011, the university unveiled “Destination 20/20,” its strategic plan for the next decade focusing on research, student experience, internationalization and bilingualism. Among the plan’s research initiatives is CAPEA.

The new center, which has expanded to five stories from the originally planned three, is scheduled to take approximately 18 months to complete.

“We want to make Ottawa the world photonics center. Our goals really have no limits,” Boyd said.

Artist’s representation as submitted to the City of Ottawa Urban Design Review Panel.