The federal government is moving ahead with plans to redevelop a sprawling set of properties in the southwest corner of Centretown.
Natural Resources Canada, which manages a number of offices near the corner of Booth Street and Carling Avenue, is in talks about transferring the northwest quadrant of its Booth Street campus, says federal spokesperson Michelle Aron.
Aron confirmed that three buildings in the quadrant are not currently in use and are intended to be transferred to Canada Lands, the Crown corporation responsible for disposing of surplus public lands, typically for sale to commercial developers.
The buildings housed laboratories and were identified as “sources of potential concern” in a 2011 report detailing a soil remediation project undertaken for the campus.
The report stated that contaminated soil in the northwest quadrant was remediated with over 15,000 tonnes of removed, including 36 tonnes of “leachate hazardous soil.”
It also proposed that land use of the quadrant be “private commercial.”
Mike Powell, president of the Dalhousie Community Association, says he’s not surprised the land is being readied for sale.
He says Canada Lands will sell the land to a developer “who will then have to go through normal city process of rezoning and having the land designated for certain uses.”
“The big thing that we would be looking for is that what’s proposed would fit in within the larger Preston-Carling Community Design plan,” says Powell. “Making sure that there is a heavy residential component, but also area where there is a mix of uses too, so retail on the ground.”
Powell says that when the plan was being designed, the northwest quadrant was talked about as “Ottawa’s answer to Toronto’s distillery district,” an historic and entertainment precinct east of Downtown Toronto which houses a number of cafes and restaurants in former distelleries.
Eric Darwin, a community activist and former president of the DCA, says businesses in the area will be “enthused” by the transfer.
“It means more people living and working in the area, which means more people going to the restaurants and businesses,” he says.
Darwin says that many downtown buildings don’t foster a well-integrated neighbourhood because the city “doesn’t plan well.”
However, he says he hopes that Canada Lands will develop the area more effectively.
“If they do, we know there will be ground-level uses and not just single-use apartment towers stuck there,” Darwin says. “You need something that has some offices, that has dentists and lawyers and hairdressers … things that make urban streets fun and useful.”
Lori Mellor, executive director of the Preston Street BIA, says she’s pleased with the news because “when the federal government turns properties over to Canada Lands, they have to do a study of what’s needed in the area.”
She adds that the Preston Street area has a retail gap of $630 million that is being spent outside the community “because we don’t meet the retail needs of our catchment area.”
“Oh my gosh, it would be so marvellous if we could get a movie theatre, you know? And a drugstore and boutiques,” she says.