Moxy Marriott & Majors Apts [126 York St & 151 George St] | 72m | 22f | U/C

[SL123]

July 17 update

[J.OT13]

When this one is complete, it will either be basic, but at least different, or decent. No matter what, it will be a good addition to the skyline, and in any case saved a cool heritage building, not facade, building.

[OTownandDown]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

When this one is complete, it will either be basic, but at least different, or decent. No matter what, it will be a good addition to the skyline, and in any case saved a cool heritage building, not facade, building.

Gotta love those heritage concrete frames that nobody will ever see again.

Joking, but at least the form of the building will partially be there, and the Disney-style match of the cladding? I do appreciate the small effort to maintain the one facade. Good to see facadism is alive and well. (I'm a believer that the heritage is usually what happened INSIDE the building rather than remembering with a glance and a sigh as you walk past the facade of some random building. The facade should probably have been rebuilt to match? But fine)

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by OTownandDown

Gotta love those heritage concrete frames that nobody will ever see again.

Joking, but at least the form of the building will partially be there, and the Disney-style match of the cladding? I do appreciate the small effort to maintain the one facade. Good to see facadism is alive and well. (I'm a believer that the heritage is usually what happened INSIDE the building rather than remembering with a glance and a sigh as you walk past the facade of some random building. The facade should probably have been rebuilt to match? But fine)

Yeah, for me heritage is the entire building, facade, frame and foundation. This was pretty much as good as it gets. Most projects would have literally only kept the bricks and windows at the front and destroy everything else, like Ogilvy's a the Rideau Centre (retconning 75% of the building's facade and modern floors cutting through the heritage windows).

[Arcologist]

This at least looks far better than the neighbouring Andaz.

[J.OT13]

From Saturday.

[Davis137]

I kinda like it...it's similar to some of the towers that have recently gone up, or are currently going up in Hamilton. I like that it blends a new structure with older ones (or at least the façade of them).

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Davis137

I kinda like it...it's similar to some of the towers that have recently gone up, or are currently going up in Hamilton. I like that it blends a new structure with older ones (or at least the façade of them).

The vast majority of the old structure is still there, not to worry. This is more than just facadism.

[AuxTown]

I like this one. How nice it was today, driving up Waller, to see something that wasn't 28 stories tall. We have a real problem with height variation in this city (or lack thereof) though it is getting better. Looking forward to the finished product.

[BlueJay]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The vast majority of the old structure is still there, not to worry. This is more than just facadism.

The entire structure had to remain which was not in the first planning phase of this project. The City made that a requirement during the approval process but that unfortunately caused major cost increases due to the structural upgrades that were needed to be done to maintain the whole existing building. That led to value engineering on exterior and interior finishing. Instead of the City holding the developer to higher exterior finishing standards, they made Rimap keep an entire structure that no one would ever notice instead of the more cost effective method of demolishing it while keeping the York Street facade intact. This should have been just facadism. Then take Claridge next door, they were not even required to keep the facade for the Andaz addition. The general public of Ottawa do not realize how favoritism and the removal of red tape happens for certain developers here.

[OTownandDown]

Agreed. What's the point in keeping a heritage structural frame? Other than some engineer in the future who's got to figure out how to repair it despite it being lightly reinforced and a little sketchy. They're going to open it up and be confused initially until they figure out it's the original frame to the facade... and they're going to say 'oooo, so heritage'

The heritage was the activity and the finishes on the interior. And the nostalgic sighs heard by older folks walking past in the future and glancing at the heritageness of the facade. The new interior finishes covering the heritage frame kept at great expense will be taupe drywall.

Edit: Loving the steps in the structure, and the light grey cladding on those steps, for once. Looking very nice. Not quite sure about the Lees Avenue apartment copy for the remainder.

Originally Posted by BlueJay

The entire structure had to remain which was not in the first planning phase of this project. The City made that a requirement during the approval process but that unfortunately caused major cost increases due to the structural upgrades that were needed to be done to maintain the whole existing building. That led to value engineering on exterior and interior finishing. Instead of the City holding the developer to higher exterior finishing standards, they made Rimap keep an entire structure that no one would ever notice instead of the more cost effective method of demolishing it while keeping the York Street facade intact. This should have been just facadism. Then take Claridge next door, they were not even required to keep the facade for the Andaz addition. The general public of Ottawa do not realize how favoritism and the removal of red tape happens for certain developers here.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by BlueJay

The entire structure had to remain which was not in the first planning phase of this project. The City made that a requirement during the approval process but that unfortunately caused major cost increases due to the structural upgrades that were needed to be done to maintain the whole existing building. That led to value engineering on exterior and interior finishing. Instead of the City holding the developer to higher exterior finishing standards, they made Rimap keep an entire structure that no one would ever notice instead of the more cost effective method of demolishing it while keeping the York Street facade intact. This should have been just facadism. Then take Claridge next door, they were not even required to keep the facade for the Andaz addition. The general public of Ottawa do not realize how favoritism and the removal of red tape happens for certain developers here.

I wasn't aware the project was initially supposed to be facadism. I thought the plan was always to preserve the Major Building in full (or nearly).

I don't disagree with the favoritism. One only needs to look at Soho Italia's rejected 35 floor proposal, while the City offered 5 extra floors to Claridge proposing the initially 40 storey Icon across the street. It's always seemed as though local campaign donors had more influence than out of town developers. Rideau Centre is probably another one, where the old Ogilvy was sacrificed for a bigger underground parking garage. We now have 1/4 of the facade left, with floors running through the heritage windows.

That said, I will challenge your notion that Rimap value engineered only because they were told to preserve the heritage building. We have seen significant value engineering at their AC Marriott project a block away. Is the excuse in that case the Waller Mall rehab and maintenance?

I sincerely hope that they don't value engineer the Renaissance, as that will dominate the skyline for decades to come.

I'll leave my opinions on heritage preservation aside, knowing I'm in the minority.

[BlueJay]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I wasn't aware the project was initially supposed to be facadism. I thought the plan was always to preserve the Major Building in full (or nearly).

I don't disagree with the favoritism. One only needs to look at Soho Italia's rejected 35 floor proposal, while the City offered 5 extra floors to Claridge proposing the initially 40 storey Icon across the street. It's always seemed as though local campaign donors had more influence than out of town developers. Rideau Centre is probably another one, where the old Ogilvy was sacrificed for a bigger underground parking garage. We now have 1/4 of the facade left, with floors running through the heritage windows.

That said, I will challenge your notion that Rimap value engineered only because they were told to preserve the heritage building. We have seen significant value engineering at their AC Marriott project a block away. Is the excuse in that case the Waller Mall rehab and maintenance?

I sincerely hope that they don't value engineer the Renaissance, as that will dominate the skyline for decades to come.

I'll leave my opinions on heritage preservation aside, knowing I'm in the minority.

That is another good example about the SOHO vs Icon. As for the value engineering, I was involved in the early planning stages and yes, it indeed added millions to the projected costs so measures were taken to cut in other areas. As for the Renaissance, the exterior Value Engineering is completed and that led to the removal of a lot of precast on the balcony slab edges and the materials replacing that certain detail will be a closer match to the Releve baclonies.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by BlueJay

That is another good example about the SOHO vs Icon. As for the value engineering, I was involved in the early planning stages and yes, it indeed added millions to the projected costs so measures were taken to cut in other areas. As for the Renaissance, the exterior Value Engineering is completed and that led to the removal of a lot of precast on the balcony slab edges and the materials replacing that certain detail will be a closer match to the Releve baclonies.

So matching Relevé is the value engineering?

[BlueJay]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

So matching Relevé is the value engineering?

So maybe reread my comment. I did not say that at all. The value engineering that was done for balcony slab edges will now be a closer match to the Releve detail.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by BlueJay

So maybe reread my comment. I did not say that at all. The value engineering that was done for balcony slab edges will now be a closer match to the Releve detail.

Yeah, that's what I understood. Relevé looks pretty good, so if it matches, I'll be pretty happy.