Government seeking public input on use of former U.S. embassy building
Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: August 8, 2016 | Last Updated: August 8, 2016 5:51 PM EDT
If you think the former American embassy at 100 Wellington St. across from Parliament Hill would make a dandy national portrait gallery, you’ll soon have an opportunity to make that case.
The federal government wants to turn the embassy building, vacant since 1998, into a “special destination” for Canadians, Rob Wright, an assistant deputy minister at Public Services and Procurement Canada, told journalists during a media tour Monday.
To find out what Canadians think that destination should be, the department will hold a town-hall meeting, webcast live, at the nearby Sir John A. Macdonald Building on Aug. 18 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. An
online survey will be available at that time at
http://www.canada.ca/100WellingtonStreet until Sept. 9.
The government has a “high-level list” of possible uses, Wright said, but they won’t be revealed until Aug. 18. He declined to say whether a portrait gallery is on the list, but it’s a solid bet: that was the intended use of the former embassy until the Conservatives were elected in 2006 and cancelled the project.
“I don’t want to scoop myself,” Wright said coyly. “You’ll have to come out on the 18th of August.”
Nor is there any timeline yet for the project. “We’re focused on hearing from Canadians on how they want to use the building,” Wright said. Once the consultation ends on Sept. 9, there will be a period of analysis, he said, with the results made public “sometime in the coming months.”
That suggests the government might announce the former embassy’s future use next year as a Canada 150 initiative, but Wright wouldn’t go there Monday.
“We’re at step one of the process,” he said. “A timeline will come out after we have a use that I’m sure will be exciting.”
Wright said the 1,605-square-metre embassy building — built in 1931-32 and designed by Cass Gilbert, the American architect who designed the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington — is a “keystone building within the parliamentary precinct.
“In fact, if the parliamentary precinct were a Monopoly game, this would be Park Place,” he said. “This building has it all. It has an ideal location, it’s an architectural gem and it’s got a very special history.”
Ottawa Centre MP Catherine McKenna, the minister of the environment and climate change, said she was “thrilled we’re now moving forward to make this heritage building a public space Ottawans and visitors alike will use and be proud of.?
“I know how important this is to our community, so I look forward to the public consultation and to working on behalf of the people of the National Capital Region to make sure this space reaches its potential,”? she said.?
Done in Italian neoclassical style, the building was the first embassy built in Ottawa, said Thierry Montpetit, a senior director in the department’s parliamentary precinct branch — and one of the first the Americans built anywhere.
Hazardous materials and outdated mechanical and electrical systems were removed and other demolition work done as part of the portrait gallery project. That cost about $800,000 — part of $9 million the former Liberal government spent on the portrait gallery project before the Tories pulled the plug in 2006.
That money wasn’t wasted, Wright said. “That investment would have had to be done regardless of future use.” Since then, the department has spent an average of $200,000 a year on upkeep.
The building today has been largely gutted to concrete walls and ceilings, with exposed wiring and plumbing. Yet some of its former grandeur is still evident.
White marble from Vermont adorns the lobby, the walls in the ambassador’s quarters are done in oak panelling and his private office, which offers an extraordinary view of the Parliament Buildings through floor-to-ceiling windows, is finished in pine, a nod to Ottawa’s lumbering history.
“Because this space was so special, the Americans invested heavily in the craftsmanship and quality of the architecture,” Montpetit said.
No matter what public use is ultimately chosen, Wright said, there will need to be “at least a small addition” to make the building universally accessible and house modern heating, cooling and electrical services.
The pending embassy building project is just the latest in a series of rehabilitation projects the department has undertaken in recent years. It completed work on the Sir John A. Macdonald Building last year and the Wellington Building last month.
Work on the West Block will be substantially complete by December 2017, Wright said. Over the summer of 2018, occupants of the Centre Block will be moved to the West Block and the former Government Conference Centre, which is also undergoing major renovations and repairs. That will trigger a decade of work to fix up the Centre Block and modernize its systems.
dbutler@postmedia.com
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