Ottawa/Gatineau | Renewal of NCR District Energy System | Innovate Energy | BBB

[Dzingle Bells]

That's quite the landscaping budget for a place that won't see any real visitors until 10+ years when Tunney's starts to fill out as a mixed use neighbourhood...

It's great though since by then the landscaping will be quite filled out.

A promising start to Tunneys, now let's get the rest going!

 

[zzptichka]

That's quite the landscaping budget for a place that won't see any real visitors until 10+ years when Tunney's starts to fill out as a mixed use neighbourhood...

View attachment 588327

It's a nice skatepark. Should be busy.

 

[hoggytime]

The left third of the building still hasn't hit grade, so there's an awful lot left to go. The second chimney will be over that extension. My guess is they will finish what we see here, then demolish the temporary plant over the left extension, then build the extension.

 

[J.OT13]

That's what I figure as well.

 

[hoggytime]

I just love this model in Place du Portage!

 

[zzptichka]

You can see how they will be attaching the veil.

 

[thenewguy]

Couple of underwhelming pictures

 

[hoggytime]

 

[OTownAndDown]

$50 says that all the area where the current grey plant is becomes 6 more rows of parking. Current curving project boundary fence becomes the boundary of the 'park'.

 

[CapitalSeven]

This is the rendering from the official web site. Of course plans change, but I would be surprised if they would crow so loud about how green this project is then replace a park with parking. Doug Ford maybe but not the liberals.

 

[urbottawa]

Mesh installation has started!

Also, nice to see that it’s real copper for the wall feature in the park

 

[OTownAndDown]

This is the rendering from the official web site. Of course plans change, but I would be surprised if they would crow so loud about how green this project is then replace a park with parking. Doug Ford maybe but not the liberals.
View attachment 614998

Where those people are standing on the extreme far left. This is off the side of the new building, and is approximately where the old (new) heating plant is right now. I predict THIS will be parking, up to the edge of the new building which will be a green podium. Load restrictions yadda yadda etc. mean this will remain a pedestrian area only. There's currently an access road for the supreme court parking garage, and one row of perpendicular parking. I predict at the very least an additional row, plus maybe another whole double-row of perpendicular parking across the full width of the site.
Edit, if you take a look at Google Maps of the current layout, its pretty obvious where the parking area will extend to.

 

[CapitalSeven]

Here's the Google Maps image from 2008, before the interim plant was built. And below that, the most recent capture in Bing Maps. The interim plant is mostly sitting on what was the parking, which extended straightish from the curved border. I presume they'll restore the parking to what it was leaving a space about 140 meters wide and 50 meters deep as park/plaza/what-have-you. How much more space in this location is realistically needed for sightseeing? I live not far away and frequently visit the areas behind the Supreme Court and Parliament. The 15 people illustrated there on a nice early-fall morning strikes me as a very generous crowd estimate for the perhaps 7000 square meters of space. Even the smaller spaces near Centre Block and West Block are not overcrowded on a busy day.

While I agree it's odd to look at an aerial view of the west end of the Hill and see so much parking, that's not going to change until the west side of the judicial square gets developed. With the Federal Court seemingly moving into the fixed-up West Memorial Building, let's not hold our breath. Realistically, a vast park here would sit vastly empty most of the time. For a look at past plans and what could have been here, go to this Urbsite page. At least we aren't going to be walking past the neo-fascist anti-communist mega-monument Stephen Harper in his wisdom greenlit.

 

[zzptichka]

These parking lots is where all those countless monuments and memorials should've gone to. That's insane that we are expanding parking lots on the Parliament Hill in 2025.

 

[CapitalSeven]

I'm still not convinced they are making the parking lot bigger than it was in 2008. In fact, if you squint at the picture Hoggytime posted of the model, the upper left corner shows the park area curving back up towards the existing driveway. If that's accurate the park would look something like this, with the interim plant replaced by greenspace, and less parking, not more, than before.


EDIT: Fixed this image, and found another grabbed from a video about the broader project. It also shows the park curving up to the northeast. There doesn't seem to be a site plan published online anywhere.