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Posted Oct 28, 2008, 2:12 AM
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 9,255
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recent updates on the old CTC westboro
C of A
http://lovewestboro.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/canadian-tire-coa.pdf
“The Owner wants to demolish the existing 1-storey commercial building in order to construct an 8-storey retail/residential building, as shown on plans filed with the Committee. The ground floor facing Richmond Road will contain retail units with 174 residential retirement units above, and 3 levels of underground parking to be accessed from Patricia Avenue. “
Quote:
Rage against the beige
Would it kill Ottawa developers to build something in Westboro that had a little colour? Kelly Egan asks.
Kelly Egan
The Ottawa Citizen
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Here's the problem with modern architecture. You and I have to look at it.
The other day, a cagey geezer stops by the typing-hovel, on about this and that, climbing out on this limb then that one -- never a saw around when you need one! -- when he struck on something that, absolutely, matters to you, me and our surroundings.
Gist-wise, it went like this: They're ruining Westboro, brick by brick.
Yes, literally with bad brick. You know the kind. It's that pale, insipid-coloured brick that dares not speak its name because, frankly, it has none. It isn't an identifiable colour. It's a washed-out yellow or an anemic shade of putty, the vitality sucked right out of it, as though slain just before installation.
Along Richmond Road, where condo-mania has struck, you will see this sickly yellow brick on top, a grey stone on the bottom, maybe a beige accent here or there, with metal trim of brushed aluminum. It is a tableau of sand, and every day -- rain or shine -- looks wrapped in a fog.
What, can anyone tell me, is so wrong with red brick? We suffer, for some reason, this terrible aversion to real colour. If nothing else, red brick at least says RED.
As a kid growing up, do you remember silver cars? Not me. Look around today. Every second vehicle is silver or grey.
I think of Apple, supposedly the world's greatest merchant of cool. It makes computers that, to my knowledge, are only white, black or silver. Its use of colour is reserved for little things, such as iPods, as though, like hot sauce, just a splash here and there is all we could stand. Maybe it's their fault.
Many things are now under way in Westboro and environs. I don't know if it is too late to stop this parade of architectural blandness, which, by the way, is being done at the expense of useful things like hardware stores and gas stations.
You imagine the neighbourhood in 20 years: hundreds of well-to-do, retired condo dwellers, all dressed in Gore-Tex, buzzed on Bridgehead coffee, staring at each other, wondering: "What do we do now?"
Food, booze, coffee and condos -- those seem to be the signature commodities on Richmond Road at the moment.
There is a housing project at 119 Richmond, site of the former Canadian Tire store. There is a housing project at 101 Richmond, which is promising the Realtor's Holy Trinity: Urban, Condo, Lofts, on the sign.
The project at 119, by Ashcroft Homes, calls for an eight-storey building with 174 housing units, intended as a retirement residence. The ground floor will contain retail. Well, of course it will contain ground-floor retail. Get with the program!
To bring it about, however, the builder needs a minor variance to go above the current height restriction. The matter will be heard by the committee of adjustment on Nov. 5.
I have seen an artist's rendering of the buildings. They look OK, but just. Yellowish brick here and there, mixed with deeper shades of brown, a turret-affair going on at the corner.
If I were God of the committee of adjustment, and let's pretend for one paragraph I am, I would tell Ashcroft: "You can have your zoning variance on one condition. Build something innovative and colourful. Build something gorgeous, for the sake of the masses who have to walk by it, day in, day out. Do not use a colour of brick that looks like old newsprint. If you can do this, you get the extra floors. If not, why should we bend the rules a) for your private gain and b) to permit more blandness to be inflicted on a street with so much potential?"
I see an ad for the second phase of Westboro Station, farther along Richmond at Golden Avenue, in drawings a cascading set of condo blocks rising up from the street. Say this about it. At least it has a strong colour scheme, which gives it a solid, muscular feel, as though proud of its presence on the street. Unlike some, it is not desperately trying to fade neutrally into the sky or the dirty sidewalk.
A couple of years ago, I interviewed a businessman named Paul Palango, a journalist and author who had spun a sideline into a successful glass-
blowing business based in Nova Scotia. It had a store, Chez Glass Lass, on Bank Street.
The company sold glass dishes in many, many vibrant colours. His verdict, after three years here, about the taste of Ottawa customers?
"We can't make things brown enough."
Oh yes, my friend, you bet we can.
Contact Kelly Egan at 613-726-5896
or by e-mail, [email protected]
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008
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