The City of Ottawa is looking for design proposals to begin the transformation of Queen Street into the city’s new “Showcase Street” and pedestrian route.
The Queen Street revamp is the first project under Downtown Moves, Ottawa’s new plan for the downtown area.
The transformation stems from the LRT route under the downtown core that’s expected to be completed in 2018. With two of the three major downtown stops to be located on Queen, tens of thousands of pedestrians are expected to set foot on Queen every day.
In a posting geared towards engineering consultants, the city calls for design submissions from companies over the next three weeks, closing on April 22nd.
Downtown Moves has dubbed Queen as Ottawa’s “Showcase Street” of the downtown core, with “more space for culture, community, and vitality”, according to the report.
According to a Downtown Moves report, “Queen will have enormous demands to carry pedestrians to the Confederation line stations entrances along it and will do so by the construction of generous wide sidewalks, amenities to provide safe and comfortable walking, and buildings that will eventually become more street-oriented.”
The new plan for Queen Street should be finished within a year, according to the city.
The predicted price tag for the project is not yet released.