By Dara Hakimzadeh
An elite party last month at the Rideau Centre, Ottawa Congress Centre and Westin Hotel declared the complex, opened by former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the saviour of the city’s core.
Among the guests celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the buildings was the first chairwoman of the National Capital Commission, Jean Piggot.
“It was an old city — an old core. The trains were there and were very much a part of the area,” remembered Piggot. “The city was growing, there were factories downtown.”
Not only was she heading the NCC in 1984, once the centre opened, she also played a role in lobbying for an extension of the centre as Ottawa Congress chairwoman between 1992 and 1998.
“Some buildings were over a hundred years old and the streets were narrow compared to today’s standard,” recalls the 79-year-old Order of Canada recipient as she sits in a wheelchair in the hallway leading to the Westin Hotel
Former Ottawa mayor Marion Dewar spoke to the crowd of 600 community and business leaders at the event.
In her speech Dewar joked about how the creation of the complex brought the three levels of government together.
“We had a Liberal prime minister, a Conservative premier and a socialist mayor — me — and we got things done,” recalls Dewar.
“Sparks Street was very active and Rideau Street was not,” she says.
“Business was dying, you see, they were building malls in the suburbs and we were losing all of that.”
In 1983, former NCC chair Charles “Bud” Drury had big design ideas, says Dewar.
“Rideau Street was going to be covered from the Chateau Laurier right down to King Edward practically. They showed it to me and it looked very grandiose and very beautiful. But I said ‘It’s not Ottawa. It’s not what we’re looking for,’” she says.
David Hamilton, Ottawa Congress Centre president, says though he hasn’t been in the city since the beginning of the complex, he still has plenty to celebrate.
“We’ve had 20 years of success and we feel that we have 20 years of future success,” he says.