I don't know if there's a fantasy thread this would fit better in...
I've wanted to create a plan for what I'd like to see happen with the area North of
Westboro Station. I tried to draw something this weekend using SketchUp. I didn't include the buildings on the South side of Scott out of laziness. The plan isn't quite to scale as I was measuring using GeoOttawa, but it gives an idea. I'd demolish the Centre Jules-Leger and Graham Spry Buildings, and create a small retail street leading up to the station. Tokyo does it quite well where even in suburbs, they have a small commercial street/ strip beside the station. It serves the local community but can be a destination for those taking the train. An example is
Yaguchi-no-Watashi Station. It's a narrow street with small buildings lining it. I would want the commercial street to be narrow and have one lane wide enough for a fire trucker and deliveries, but it would mostly be for pedestrians. There would still be greenspace north of the proposal along the Parkway to provide a buffer. The farthest part of this plan is 500m from the station (6min walk away).
I would reduce parking in this buildings to less than 25% of units because this is supposed to be transit-oriented development. Ottawa doesn't seem to understand that buildings downtown and beside transit stations don't need that much parking and shouldn't have so much. I would restrict parking for these buildings. Locals in Westboro and Westboro beach could benefit from the retail and offices, but it would help with a lot of housing demand for the area and provide a destination at a transit station to shop.
There would be some taller buildings closer to the station and near the existing high rises in the Northwest of the site. The rest would be lowrise, but high density to provide a better transition for the existing neighbourhood, similar to some of the buildings
in Montreal. Highrisers would be along Scott Street as currently planned.
The station itself would have a special, architecturally-distinct building that could be an important civic centre, retail, office, apartments, museum/ art gallery or what have you. The bus area on Scott would become more of a small plaza to wait and hang out. Buses could still drop people off here.
I wouldn't have built the lowrise townhouses northwest of Minto Metropole as that land would be better for midrise buildings. But I left them as is in this model.
Legend
Pink - train station with other occupancies
Blue with red - 4-storey max commercial building with retail at street level and office above.
Yellow - 3-4 storey residential building (apartments)
Purple - 5-9 storey residential building (apartments, condos)
Green - 10-25 storey residential building (apartments, condos)
White - Existing buildings
Looking North
Looking South
Area in Question
Area Plan
