The buildings of the Booth Street complex, currently owned by Natural Resources Canada, have been pegged as an ideal site for Ottawa’s own distillery district.
Community organizations and developers are eyeing a cluster of old industrial buildings on Booth Street as an ideal site for a distillery district that could be Ottawa’s version of the popular distillery neighbourhood in Toronto.
The Booth Street complex, currently owned by Natural Resources Canada, occupies several city blocks on the east side of Booth Street, north of Carling Avenue. The complex has 13 brick buildings with peaked roofs and paned windows.
Though alcohol was never brewed on the site as in Toronto’s distillery district, the historical buildings create a similar industrial atmosphere.
A spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada says the department has no plans to move out or redevelop the 10.4-hectare site anytime soon, but a report last year in the Ottawa Citizen cited an access-to-information request revealing the government may one day sell part of its holdings in the area.
This possibility has residents envisioning an urban village that could one day enliven the Centretown area.
“You can just picture the old buildings mixed with new, glass highrises around the parking lot and in the centre you’d have this very attractive courtyard area which would be great for retail uses or a farmer’s market,” says Eric Darwin, the president of the Dalhousie Community Association.
The site’s proximity to Preston Street and Dow’s Lake makes it a prime redevelopment spot, says Darwin.
He adds that the size of the complex would allow for the mixture of dense urban living and outdoor pedestrian space similar to Toronto’s distillery district.
Toronto’s version is a national historic site east of the downtown core. It was transformed from a collection of derelict buildings into a rejuvenated urban hub 11 years ago.
Open only to pedestrians, the tourist attraction houses businesses, art galleries, theatres, schools and condos.
Similar mixed-use development would be necessary in order for a distillery district to be economically viable in Ottawa, says Lori Mellor, executive director of the Preston Street BIA.
“Having a hub there would be helpful for our businesses,” she says. “We’re desperate for retail, so we need some retail attractions here to get people to Preston Street beyond just dining.”
A combination of retail, office and residential space would encourage local residents to stay in the neighbourhood to shop and would also draw people in from other parts of the city.
Mellor says retailers have typically been reluctant to come into the neighbourhood because of its low-income census tract, but they could be enticed if the Booth Street complex was rehabilitated.
“These big plots of land are most likely to get the big retailers we need,” she says. “If you get one big anchor store, that starts a rejuvenation.”
The owners of the Toronto distillery district say they might be interested in buying the property if it goes up for sale.
“We think there is opportunity for our company to create something that would be well received by the local community and that would certainly make living in and visiting Ottawa better,” says Cityscape Holdings’ marketing and media spokesman Mathew Rosenblatt.
But Rosenblatt says if Cityscape Holdings does plan to build on the site, it would not recreate the same design in Ottawa.
“Each site is meant to be an evolution of the city itself, so we’d be looking to create something that would be a reflection of Ottawa.”