An artist’s rendering shows a restored Somerset House on Bank Street.
Somerset House has been a partially demolished eyesore for the past six years, but plans to finally restore the historic building have raised hopes for a rejuvenated community and strengthened bylaws to protect other heritage properties in the city.
This month, city council approved reconstruction plans for the building at the corner of Somerset and Bank streets. A modern glass structure will replace the collapsed rear section where exposed steel bracing now stands.
Construction is slated to finish within two years and then the space will likely be filled with retail and commercial tenants, says Sally Coutts, a heritage planner for the city.
Somerset House was built around 1896, but this latest chapter in its history began in October 2007 when part of the building collapsed after construction workers knocked out a support wall in the basement during renovations.
The city closed the surrounding streets for two months and demolished the building’s northeast corner in an effort to make the site safer.
The owner and the city clashed in the courts over who was responsible for resulting expenses, finally settling the case last December when owner Tony Shahrasebi agreed to pay $650,000 of firefighting and policing costs.
While council’s approval this month may seem like a long-awaited resolution, project architect Derek Crain says there’s still a long way to go.
“This approval of the city is really secondary to the amount of work it will take to get the site redeveloped and find a bona fide commercial tenant for the space to bring some life back to the community,” says Crain, who also serves as chair of the Somerset Village BIA.
The city’s deadline for the project is reasonable, says Crain, but adds that the entire area would benefit if construction could be completed within that time.
“Somerset is probably one of the most unique little commercial streets in the city. Its anchor was 352 Somerset St., which has been unfortunately lost to us for many years and has hurt neighbouring businesses,” Crain explains.
To avoid similar losses in the future, city council is changing Ottawa’s property bylaws to better protect historic buildings, as part of a larger effort to clean up the city’s derelict properties.
Bylaw revisions, approved by council this fall, include setting minimum standards for upkeep of heritage buildings, better protecting historic architectural elements, and more clearly defining what makes a heritage property, according to city reports.
It’s a great start, says David Flemming, past president of Heritage Ottawa, but the city still must make more changes.
When the Somerset House saga started, Heritage Ottawa proposed a new bylaw with an “emergency heritage preservation protocol.”
If such a bylaw had been in place, notes Flemming, the city could have avoided the 2007 Somerset House collapse by intervening much sooner than it did.
The original building is a good example of an early 20th-century commercial structure influenced by the Queen Anne Revival style, Coutts explains. Destroyed and damaged historical elements will be reconstructed, including a new white “finial,” the small turret jutting above the roof on the corner.
As for the new glass rear portion, “the design is very tasteful,” says Flemming. “They didn’t try to mimic what’s left of the original building, but it complements it very well.”
Heritage advocates were initially concerned the city would allow the demolition of Somerset House rather than follow through with a restoration. Flemming says he’s glad the city has chosen to preserve an important piece of Ottawa’s built history.
“Some people see the glass half empty – they look at a 100-year-old building and see it as too much work to repair. Ottawa needs people with a certain amount of imagination, who can look at an old building like Somerset House and see something that should be saved,” says Flemming.