Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.



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Central Condos

When Urban Capital moved their Mondrian showcase up to the Metro Bible Church parking lot, but then didn't move the Mondrian office along with it, my friends speculated that a new condo was in the works. The Metro Bible Church is moving (or has already) out to some suburban paradise of parking, and my friends were right, as Urban Capital has now put up signs for "Central Condominiums".





The site plan proposal says 9 storeys. I think that's reasonable for this location.

They have a full rendering on their site (and not much else). It looks good



With Mondrian on one end, Central on the other, and the proposed James Street redevelopment near Central, I think the gentrification of Bank Street will be solidified. Add to that Hudson Park going up on Kent and there will be hundreds of new people in the area. I think these are all great developments for Centretown. I wouldn't want to see towering condos everywhere, but mixing in some high-density is entirely appropriate. If it wasn't for the damn Queensway in the way, it would be a natural progression for the Glebe's housing and valuations to expand north down Bank Street, and it seems like that is happening anyway.

People bring eyes on the street and foot traffic, that brings safety and interesting stores. Hopefully that will bring enough life to Bank that they can shut down the Bank Street business association and take down all the hideous plastic crap signs and advertising boards that they feel are necessary to remind us we're on Bank.

There are a few more pix in my Central Condominiums set on Flickr.

UPDATE: On closer inspection of the rendering, it looks like they plan to retain the Metro Church building, which is kind of an odd choice. Inside I gather it's kind of designed to work as an auditorium or movie theatre (I've never been in). I wonder what they're planning to do with it?

Also see the discussion thread on SkyScraperPage (a really good site about construction in many places, including Ottawa).

Labels: condos, ottawa

posted by Richard at 14:14 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)