Nokia Campus [570-600 March Rd] | 11 x 13-29f | Phase 1 U/C
 

Credit to Marcus CLS who posted the original devapps link in the General Suburban updates

Here are the main details:

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Novatech has prepared this Planning Rationale on behalf of Nokia Canada Inc. to support Official Plan and Zoning By-law Amendment applications for a site on two municipal addresses – 570 and 600 March Road (together the “Subject Site”).

Nokia proposes a mixed use development comprising the relocation of the existing Nokia offices to the southern end of the Subject Site and mixed use buildings and a park on a new private street network.

Note that this Planning Rationale should be read together with the Design Brief by Gensler Architects to fully comply with the Terms of Reference for the Design Brief.

2.0 DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL

The existing office building on the Subject Site no longer meets Nokia’s requirements and will be demolished and the large surface parking lot will be removed. A new office campus for Nokia is proposed at the southern end of the site. It will be subject of a separate Site Plan Control application. The current concept is for a building with a low-rise base with retail and a podium-top amenity area for occupants of the building, with a four storey and a 10 storey tower extending above this. Conceptually, 46,000m2 of office and laboratory space is proposed, along with 3,200m2 of ground floor retail/commercial, for an approximate Floor Space Index (FSI) of 1.06. A total of 1,344 car parking spaces are proposed for the Nokia office building.

The building will address a proposed pedestrian oriented street (‘Lifestyle Street’ on the plans) that will link March Road and Legget Drive and will also connect the office building with the rest of the site. Vehicle access to the new office building will be from March Road and Legget Drive via a driveway to the south of the building that is away from the main pedestrian access. Visitor vehicle access is to the west of the new office building from March Road.

North of the new Nokia office campus the Subject Site will be developed in the future and will be subject to future development applications. Conceptually, it is intended for this part of the site to be developed for 11 towers of 13 to 29 storeys with podiums of six to eight storeys. The two towers in both Buildings C and D share a podium. Across the broader site 1,900 residential units and an FSI of 3.0 are conceptually proposed. A total of 4,500m2 of retail is conceptually proposed for this northern part of the site, along with a total of 2,410 car parking spaces.

The building are conceptually arranged around the edges of the site with the internal part of the site available for a north south pedestrian oriented private street, public parkland and extensive landscaping. The pathway around the site’s perimeter with access into the site at multiple points provides a high level of pedestrian permeability. A signature urban plaza provides a primary, ‘gateway’ pedestrian access directly from the future Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) stop at the intersection of March Road and Terry Fox Drive immediately to the northwest of the Subject Site. Vehicular entrances are limited to the north-south street and the east-west street separating this Official Plan Amendment and Zoning By-law Amendment 570 and 600 March Road 3 part of the site from the Nokia office campus. Except for limited on street parking, parking is undercover.

Two new private streets are proposed. One runs east-west between March Road and Legget Drive (‘Lifestyle Street’ on the plans). The second runs north-south connecting the Lifestyle Street with Terry Fox Drive. These streets are intended to function well for all users and have conceptual cross-sections designed to serve all users... etc

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Sad to see the original Newbridge HQ buildings razed but this development is long overdue... why LRT does not serve this area is beyond me.

Might sound crazy, but I kind of like the current Nokia Building. It's not an office building surrounded by parking, but a campus surrounded by greenspace, next to a giant parking lot. The dark glass and red brick trim is also nice.

That said, this is a pretty good proposal. I wish we could see more of this near suburban O-Train stations (looking at you, Orleans). I wish the n/s street in the middle would also be lined with retail to better connect to the shorter e/w street between Terry Fox and Legget, but otherwise, this is good.

WOW! I didn't see that coming. This will be a massive improvement! My office looks over that parking lot and the massive parking lots have always seemed such a waste, but I didn't think it would ever get fixed. This is giving me new hope to make the area more walkable.

While the north-west end of the campus, where the buildings are have a decent layout, the lack of underground parking and thus the required massive parking lot to the south-east is what kills the current design.

I assume the overhead walkway that connects the current building to Tower A of 555 Legget will be removed.

Wrong thread for this, but we haven't even finished the extension to Moodie, so you are jumping the gun. Only having a line to Kanata North wouldn't serve anyone south of the Queensway. In a perfect world there would be 3 branches in Kanata:

1. This one to Kanata North (with a possible extension to Carp),
2. One to Kanata South (with a possible extension to Stittsville), and
3. One to Terry Fox station, (with a possible extension to the CTC).

This would be expensive to begin with, and with the new trend towards WFH, building transit that focuses on commuting is becoming questionable. It also wouldn't do anything to help people travel within Kanata/Stittsville (which is where people who are traveling to/form here should optimally going from/to most of the time. To do that, a north south line would also be needed, further adding to the cost.

Getting back on topic, this development will be a step towards making it possible for people to live in a more walkable community, so that more people don't need to travel as far on a daily basis.

The March Road BRT is shovel-ready (and has been for a decade now) and a project like this certainly makes the case to build that BRT a lot more compelling.

The BRT plan, for sure! I was responding to Marshsparrow's comment that construction LRT to the site should have been built by now. I assumed he was talking about using one of the two ROWs to connect it to the Confederation Line, though that may have been a bad assumption.

I still think of the towers they are tearing down as new. Time flies!!!

This is a huge investment in Kanata, hopefully the upcoming recession doesn't affect it. 29 story towers next to the 30 story Brookstreet tower would give Kanata North quite the little skyline.

If this keeps up - maybe one day that section of March road will no longer be one of Ottawa's most sterile stroads.

They brought in the containers last week for another season of training.

Great misrepresentation of my post - glad you see this as the solution to get that part of Kanata out of their cars - you will be disappointed.

Sorry. That is how I interpreted your post. Feel free to clarify what you meant.

I am not sure we will ever get everyone in any part of the city out of their cars, but we can do things to reduce the number of people who depend on cars. A lot of people in Kanata depend on cars because transit to anywhere other than downtown sucks. For me it would take three to for times as long to take transit to work as it does to drive (my office is across the street from this development).

KANATA: Nokia's plans for dramatic makeover contain retail, restaurants, residential units

James Bagnall, Ottawa Sun
Publishing date:May 16, 2022

Assuming the plans become reality, Nokia would solidify its status as a lynchpin of Kanata's growing tech sector.

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Three decades after Newbridge Networks installed its headquarters along Kanata's March Rd., successor company Nokia has unveiled plans for a complete makeover that also includes housing, restaurants and retailing. PHOTO BY HANDOUT /Nokia

A corner of the Kanata North Technology Hub appears set for a dramatic makeover.

Tech infrastructure giant Nokia, which employs about 2,300 locally, is seeking city permission to build a major new campus along March Road, just south of its current location. The proposed 500,000 square-foot office and laboratory complex would include a base of retail and commercial stores, topped by two office towers. There would be parking for 1,344 vehicles.

At the same time, Nokia intends to raze its existing office buildings and replace them with 11 residential towers ranging in height from 13 to 29 storeys — some of which exceed the current height limit of 144 feet. The new development would include space for retailers, restaurants and sufficient parking for 2,410 cars. Current plans call for 1,900 residential units. The Nokia site requires rezoning to permit residences, retailers and restaurants.

Assuming the plans become reality, Nokia would solidify its status as a lynchpin of Kanata’s growing tech sector. It is also a vote of confidence in the future of the office. And, not least, the addition of sufficient residential units to accommodate more than 4,000 people would help alleviate some of the pressure in Kanata’s tight housing market.

The 26-acre parcel of land has been witness to much high-tech drama since 1988, when it was acquired by Newbridge Networks — the telecommunications technology firm founded by Terence Matthews. Newbridge, one of this region’s most successful startups, hired thousands globally as its revenues soared to $1 billion annually during its first decade (All figures USD).

Bowing to the need for massive scale in its industry, Newbridge sold its shares for $7 billion in 2000 to French telecommunications equipment giant Alcatel, which later merged with Lucent Technologies of New Jersey. There followed an even bigger transaction in 2016, when Nokia shelled out $17 billion in shares to acquire Alcatel-Lucent. Ever since, Nokia has relied on its Kanata workforce for expertise in optical and internet protocol networking technologies.

Nokia is a case study on how to navigate a tumultuous industry. The Finnish tech giant in the late 1990s was the globe’s number one provider of mobile phones. But when its main business was overwhelmed by the iPhone and Samsung’s Android devices, Nokia launched Plan B — it diversified into making the heavy-duty equipment and networks that permit smartphones to communicate with each other.

Nokia last year posted $2 billion in profits on revenues of $26 billion. Its most profitable and fastest-growing unit, which includes the Kanata group, builds network infrastructure.

This makes Nokia a key part of a cluster of tech firms locally that are building out the globe’s communications infrastructure to support fifth-generation wireless technology. 5G software and gear offer faster, more reliable connections for a wide range of electronic devices, from cars to appliances. The three local giants — Nokia, Ericsson and Ciena — collectively employ more than 5,000 in Kanata. They are surrounded by hundreds of other tech firms with a combined workforce of more than 25,000 in the area.

The economic impact of this technology hub was obvious in the most recent census. Kanata’s population grew 16 per cent between 2016 and 2021 — double the rate for the region as a whole. The southern and northwestern perimeters of Kanata have swarmed with construction crews for much of the past decade to accommodate new home buyers.

The hiring and house construction have exacerbated traffic congestion. Indeed, employees of Kinaxis, a supply chain software company, voted pre-pandemic to locate their new office facility in south Kanata rather than the more densely travelled North Kanata tech hub.

That’s one more selling point for the new residential units being proposed by Nokia, assuming workers do return to their offices. Will they? That’s certainly the underlying assumption of Nokia’s planning. By the time its proposed new campus is ready to be occupied, it’s likely several years will have passed and the world could be a much different place.

The timing, of course, may be affected by the severity of the ongoing stock market crunch, and whether it presages an economic slowdown or contraction. While communications carriers such as Telus and Bell Canada are expected to invest in 5G technologies for many years to come, the pace of spending will depend on how quickly subscribers and corporations buy the related services.

Tech firms with long history understand very well how quickly things can turn. In 1997, as Newbridge’s Kanata workforce topped 2,800, the company unveiled plans to build multiple new office towers to accommodate even more hiring. As it turned out, the company was already near its peak.

Despite having to adapt to a string of new owners, the Kanata core thrived because it stayed competitive. Last year it spun off nearly $1 billion in economic activity, based on its contribution to Nokia’s global output. It’s why Nokia is returning the favour with new digs.

https://ottawasun.com/business/local...d-e33ec93857ae

I love this proposal's density and mixed-use design. Along with the new high-rise development behind the Brookstreet, this area is going to look a lot different.

I'm seriously going to miss the original Newbridge Networks brown brick and black glass windows though! They're nice buildings, don't seem *that* old to me, and offer a nostalgic feel that brings us back to the beginning of the high-tech boom in Kanata. If there was a way to design around these, I'd love to see it done!

I feel like if they kept the original towers, they could easily add some towers above the Lab and Nokia Amenity deck to make up for it.

I hope they'll consider it!

They could at very least build bus shelter and seating into the street level somewhere.

We need to start insisting on that if our supposed commitment to transit means anything.

It will only be a step towards walkability if it is walkable, and those generous suburban setbacks at street level makes things less walkable.

Why do builders in this city love their bloody ground-level setbacks so much? Why do they hate the street?

I'm assuming by hate the street, your talking about the interaction with "Life-style" street itself. In which case I fully agree, Pedestrians in a fully new development shouldn't be forced to enter or leave your building from what equates to a traffic circle off the side of the main street.

Next-gen neighbourhood? Nokia proposes new office and R&D campus, residential towers in Kanata North

By: David Sali, OBJ
May 16, 2022 4:05pm EDT

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One of the region’s largest employers is proposing to tear down its existing Kanata North campus and replace it with a new 500,000-square-foot office complex and as many as 11 residential highrises containing up to 1,900 units.

In planning documents recently filed with the city, Finnish telecom giant Nokia says it wants to construct a new office and R&D hub on March Road covering half a million square feet, with about 35,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial and retail space.

The new campus, which would be located just south of Nokia’s current facility at 600 March Rd., would include two office towers and parking spaces for 1,344 vehicles.

In addition, Nokia says it plans to raze its existing office buildings and surface parking lot and build 11 residential towers ranging from 13 to 29 storeys in their place.

The proposal calls for 1,900 units along with nearly 50,000 square feet of retail space, restaurants and other amenities and 2,410 parking spots. Most of the parking would be underground, with some visitor spaces at grade.

The development would require a number of zoning amendments since some of the proposed buildings exceed current height limits of 144 feet and retail businesses are not permitted on the northern half of the site.

If it comes to fruition, the new development would add thousands of additional residents to an area that’s already among the city’s fastest-growing neighbourhoods.

Kanata North Business Association executive director Jamie Petten, who’s discussed the plan with Nokia, says the development could play a big part in the tech park’s “necessary transformation” into a mixed-use district with vibrant commercial and residential components.

“Our daily lives include a lot of other elements beyond just that single use of office space,” she said.

In addition, Petten said the tech park is striving to become a “living lab” where companies like Nokia, Ericsson, Ciena and others can showcase technology such as autonomous shuttles in real-world conditions.

“Our companies are growing faster than ever and the momentum is great, but in order to continue with that momentum, we need to foster an environment within the park that enables talent to live, work, play, learn and innovate,” she said. “This proposal from Nokia really supports that.”

Nokia, which employs about 2,400 workers in the National Capital Region, believes the redeveloped site could become the focal point of a district featuring a mix of office, residential and retail spaces.

The Finnish firm conducts much of its research into next-generation 5G communications technology at the March Road facility, while fellow network infrastructure giants Ericsson and Ciena also have major R&D centres nearby.

In all, the Kanata North tech park employs more than 30,000 workers at 500-plus companies. Nokia is betting that the area’s population will continue growing rapidly – and that tech employees will want to return to their offices and live nearby.

“It is likely that many of the future residents of the buildings will work in the (Kanata North tech park) and will be able to walk or cycle to work,” planning documents prepared for Nokia by consulting firm Novatech say. “Although subject to future Site Plan applications, the amount of residential (space) will allow for a broad range of apartment sizes that will cater to a wide range of people and budgets.”

Noting that about half of the tech park’s workers already reside in the neighbourhood, Petten said the addition of even more coffee shops, restaurants, daycares and other amenities under Nokia’s plan will make Kanata North an even more attractive place to live regardless of whether some residents opt to work from home.

https://www.obj.ca/article/real-esta...us-residential

"Hate the street":

- setbacks setbacks setbacks
- blank (or functionally blank) street-level facades
- more damn setbacks, weedy strips, poorly maintained "green" "spaces"
- unnecessarily long or convoluted pedestrian accesses
- buildings oriented towards parking lots or access lanes rather than the actual street
- buildings, even as part of a planned larger ensemble, that don't interact well with one another at street level
- no sense of how buildings themselves can offer shade, windbreak, shelter for transit passengers

Those are the sorts of things that constitute street-hating; ugly, inhumane, insensitive architecture, landscaping, and urban design brought to you by people who haven't walked since they turned 17.

Ottawa is rife with it, and despite all our pretty words about better planning, we do nothing about it, and have been for decades.

Few more approved Kanata North proposals.

https://ottawasun.com/news/local-new...a-651ca8c96374