Tunney's Pasture Redevelopment

[umbria27]

[QUOTE=amanfromnowhere;5838417]Eric Darwin put an article in his WestSideAction with some pics:

Cow Plats in the Pasture

Darwin, as he often does, gets to the heart of the matter. All the non-governmental uses are pushed to the edges, keeping the centre for the civil servants. This pleases no-one. The workers will either flee at lunch or eat quickly at their desks so they can leave early. The residents on the edges will only venture in after work hours to walk their dogs without fear of someone seeing them fail to pick up the dog merde.
This plan preserves Tunneys as an unloved and uninhabited place.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by amanfromnowhere

Eric Darwin put an article in his WestSideAction with some pics:

Cow Plats in the Pasture

Option 1:


Option 2:

Darwin has it upside down;

The top one with the towers directly north of the transit station aligned and more residential on the north-east corner near Brook Claxton of the pasture is option 2.

The bottom with the transit station towers offset and the skywalk type thing connecting to the transit station (west end of the station) and the office building east of Brook Claxton is option 1.

[McC]

But like Darwin said, it's basically a distinction without a difference.

http://kevino.ca/content/tunneys-pasture-animated-gif-goodness/

h/t to David Reevely

[S-Man]

This stinks! Darwin is right - this just rearanges the site but keeps the uses glaringly divided. It's like the 1970's 2.0. Like an aging car that's been facelifted, but you can still see the old car underneath.

[S-Man]

Gotta love that tiny little bit of retail seen deep in dark office cave territory (marked in red). Honestly, what is this "retail" and will it close at 6pm when the civil servants go home? Certainly no one is going to venture in there from any direction looking for food in a pitch black office park. DEAD ZONE.

[RTWAP]

Is anyone else disgusted that they're continuing to completely ignore the river that's just over the road berm?

I don't understand why you would try to enliven an area but not connect it to the river front. They should be able to find space for a small row of cafes/restaurants looking out at the river and pathway. Lots of lunch patrons nearby. Hopefully lots of dinner patrons from the area, and I could see them being really busy on the weekends with cyclists, walkers, and cross-country skiers.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by S-Man

Gotta love that tiny little bit of retail seen deep in dark office cave territory (marked in red). Honestly, what is this "retail" and will it close at 6pm when the civil servants go home? Certainly no one is going to venture in there from any direction looking for food in a pitch black office park. DEAD ZONE.

Look at Sparks street, its steps away from thousands of condos and apartments but yet everything (even the Subway restaurant) closes before 5-6pm.

I think the feds arguments for minimizing the mixed use portion in the centre of the place was ease of keeping ownership and control (was it Darwin who said that?). They don't seem to have a problem with building luxury condos on more important land downtown (700 Sussex, the Re and although not luxury, Le Breton Flats. and BTW, I know the distinction between public works and the NCC).

The 2 heights on the North West corner should be residential and the three towers on the transit station should be one residential, one office and one hotel. Put a bit of residential in the central area and retail on the base of nearly every building. We can compensate the loss of office space with two or three buildings of around 400 ft +.

While we are at it, add height to the condo building on the corner of Parkdale and Scott (350+ ft) and step down while heading north. Build something to block the Jean Talon, cause' damn that’s ugly.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by RTWAP

Is anyone else disgusted that they're continuing to completely ignore the river that just over the road berm?

I don't understand why you would try to enliven an area but not connect it to the river front. They should be able to find space for a small row of cafes/restaurants looking out at the river and pathway. Lots of lunch patrons nearby. Hopefully lots of dinner patrons from the area, and I could see them being really busy on the weekends with cyclists, walkers, and cross-country skiers.

As for taking advantage of the river; if we really need a casino, build it at the base of the POW bridge with a hotel (10-15 floors) and add a boardwalk to the War Museum lined with 2-4 story buildings with retail at the base and condo/apartments and maybe a few small offices on the top floors.

[RTWAP]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

As for taking advantage of the river; if we really need a casino, build it at the base of the POW bridge with a hotel (10-15 floors) and add a boardwalk to the War Museum lined with 2-4 story buildings with retail at the base and condo/apartments and maybe a few small offices on the top floors.

I'd be interested to see some research on the impact of a casino on the area around it. Do the new people it brings in only interact with the casino and not the surroundings?

And how different would it be from the people brought in by a museum, and how they do or do not interact with the surroundings?

[waterloowarrior]

PIC going on right now.

lots of background links here... scroll down to Project updates
http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/biens-property/pdpt-tpmp/nouvelles-news-eng.html

here is the preferred option - phase 4
http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/biens-property/pdpt-tpmp/phase4/optrev-prefopt-4-eng.html

Land Use

Office: 506,000 m² GFA (Gross Floor Area)

• Existing Office (to remain): 274,000 m² GFA
• New Office: 232,000 m² GFA

Labs: 42,000 GFA

• Existing Labs (to remain): 26,000 m² GFA
• New Labs: 16,000 m² GFA

Service Commercial: 8,500 m² GFA (minimum)

Residential: 3,400 - 3,700 units [was 800-1000 in previous plan]

Other Mixed Use (office/ residential): 40,000 m² GFA

Total: 596,500 m² GFA and 3,400 – 3,700 residential units
















This plan entitled "Preferred Option - Parking Approach" illustrates the intended future approach for the provision of parking. Existing parking lots would be replaced over time with new buildings with internalized underground and structured parking as illustrated in this example. This accommodates users better since walking distances are reduced and climate controlled conditions allow drivers to access residences and offices directly.

[Urbanarchit]

You beat me to it! I just got back from visiting the presentation, and had the opportunity to speak to the man who designed this.

I'm happy that there's more emphasis on pedestrians and cyclists, and less on motorists. Less surface parking and roads are kept at 2 lanes. Pedestrians have wider sidewalks and there's segregated cycling lanes. There's more connection to the parkway, Parkdale and Scott.

They want this to be sustainable and eco-friendly. I like the public square and the field. There's more retail space, and the architect said that ground level of the buildings would have higher ceilings so that in the future there could be more room for retail.

I'd like to see more residential units (potentially 1/5 the number of offices), and have them dispersed more throughout the area. I'd also like to see the current low-rise buildings replaced with something a bit taller and better looking.

At first I thought it would be nice to have taller buildings, but I realized I like it when some are taller than others (regardless of the actual number of floors).

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by defishel

You beat me to it! I just got back from visiting the presentation, and had the opportunity to speak to the man who designed this.

I'm happy that there's more emphasis on pedestrians and cyclists, and less on motorists. Less surface parking and roads are kept at 2 lanes. Pedestrians have wider sidewalks and there's segregated cycling lanes. There's more connection to the parkway, Parkdale and Scott.

They want this to be sustainable and eco-friendly. I like the public square and the field. There's more retail space, and the architect said that ground level of the buildings would have higher ceilings so that in the future there could be more room for retail.

I'd like to see more residential units (potentially 1/5 the number of offices), and have them dispersed more throughout the area. I'd also like to see the current low-rise buildings replaced with something a bit taller and better looking.

At first I thought it would be nice to have taller buildings, but I realized I like it when some are taller than others (regardless of the actual number of floors).

I like how they spread the residential around, but I'm disappointed that they didn't keep the proposed water feature. Also, there's a real opportunity here to turn the "Tunney's Pasture Driveway" into a proper boulevard, lined with shops, cafes, etc., rather than just open space/trees.

[J.OT13]

Significantly more residential than originally planned if I'm not mistaking. I believe it was only along Parkdale initially. As mentioned, a few more tall buildings (3-4 buildings of 40-60 floors) would have been cool, but this isn't too bad.

[rocketphish]

Updated federal vision for Tunney’s Pasture to be revealed

By David Reevely, OTTAWA CITIZEN November 27, 2013 5:01 PM

OTTAWA — Residents near Tunney’s Pasture will see Wednesday evening whether the vast government complex is going to be an urban-planning battleground or a better part of their neighbourhoods.

Two sets of urban planners have been working on separate visions for the federal campus west of downtown — a group working for the city, led by Toronto-based Urban Strategies, released a proposal earlier this month that includes a community centre and a sports field on the west side of the complex, meant to serve nearby Mechanicsville.

It’s part of a larger “community design plan” for Scott Street, which runs just south of Tunney’s Pasture, and the neighbourhoods nearby. Urban Strategies aims to knit the 49-hectare complex into its surroundings, gradually doing away with the 1950s-style layout of offices amid lawns and big parking lots.

Planners working for the federal government are to release two new visions of their own. Two earlier concepts by HOK Canada included more offices filling in Tunney’s Pasture’s open spaces and residential development around the edges. They generally kept the idea that it would be a place for government workers to work.

Neither included anything like a Mechanicsville community centre or a soccer field.

The federal government usually tries to co-operate with the city but it doesn’t have to. So the question is whether Urban Strategies and HOK have found a way to put their ideas together.

Urban Strategies’ George Dark, one of the city’s favourite planning consultants, is optimistic.

“We’ve been discussing with them as we’ve come up with the CDP for Scott Street,” he said, and the federal consultants have been part of an advisory group for the city’s plan. Although the city can’t get too bossy about what happens at Tunney’s Pasture, it’s impossible to leave it as a black box in the city’s plan, he said, and his work includes things like bike and pedestrian routes through the complex.

“Anything we created, we’ve given them,” Dark said. “I believe they’ve picked it up and are including it in their ideas.”

He thought the idea of a community centre would be “notionally” in the federal vision (“They’ll be doing lots of buildings and mixed-use buildings and you can put community centres in lots of places.”) but he wanted to see how HOK’s people handled the details before relaxing about it. Mechanicsville needs more amenities like those and all the more so if Tunney’s Pasture is going to include any residential development.

“All we have, really is Laroche Park to play in,” he said.

In August 2012, the senior minister for Ottawa, John Baird, presented the two federal concepts; Wednesday, Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre, the minister of state for Democratic Reform, was to do the honours at an open house at Tunney’s Pasture’s Jean Talon building at 5:15 p.m.

[email protected]

ottawacitizen.com/greaterottawa
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Up...nney+Pasture+revealed/9220360/story.html

[rocketphish]

Ya I know... this posting comes a bit late

[Buggys]

Was there discussion on what Federal departments will be housed there in their vision of Tunney's Pasture?

Will the Department of Health continue to dominate? Will the whole Department of Health be housed there?

[rocketphish]

Reverse angle:


Click the image for a much larger version

from: http://ow.ly/user/DenVan

[Urbanarchit]

Originally Posted by Jamaican-Phoenix

I like how they spread the residential around, but I'm disappointed that they didn't keep the proposed water feature. Also, there's a real opportunity here to turn the "Tunney's Pasture Driveway" into a proper boulevard, lined with shops, cafes, etc., rather than just open space/trees.

You know, I wish I had thought about that to include in my comments that I wrote to them. Have a retail boulevard like the Champs-Élysées. One day we may get this, but for now the architect said that as they aren't sure what the actual critical mass will be, putting retail around the public square (perhaps a grocery store, he said) will be good for now, with buildings at least designed to be retrofitted later for retail if it's needed).

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Significantly more residential than originally planned if I'm not mistaking. I believe it was only along Parkdale initially. As mentioned, a few more tall buildings (3-4 buildings of 40-60 floors) would have been cool, but this isn't too bad.

They only had it on Parkdale, but with the condos proposed across, they moved it away. They didn't like the zoning given for Parkdale, so they wanted to create a district that had buildings shorter than it. Someone told me (not sure if true) that they wanted to turn Parkdale into a "Main Street".

I'd like to see them only keep the high-rises currently at Tunney's and replace the low-rises (which are no taller than 3 stories) with something taller.

I asked about would they considered putting taller buildings with more residential or office space, and they said that this is more about having a good balance, so that it doesn't go overboard. I would have liked to see taller buildings, and it would be nice if we at least got one that was 30-40, but as long as we have many buildings that are taller than others (as they show in the image) then I'm satisfied.

I'm still concerned with the amount of private vehicles coming to this area and if we can make it vibrant enough to get more people living and shopping here. I pointed out how our downtown is a failure, sort of like an intensified Tunney's Pasture (few retail, most of which is geared towards office works) and that it's dead at times because, other than people catching the bus, the only reason to be in our CBD is for office work.

Some people still don't like this though. Someone said they wanted to see more open greenspace, especially for a sports field as they said it was necessary. The large lawn I was told by the architect was multi-purpose, so you can have sports as well as other things happening there.

[McC]

The low rise Main Stats building is the second most significant building on the site (after Brooke Claxton), in terms of the quality of the architecture, materials, consistency with the original vision, heritage value, etc.; so sorry, it's not going anywhere.

[monkeybongo]

The distribution of residential looks pretty interesting. I still think it'll be a ghost town after 5PM as it's still a bit separated from Wellington for foot traffic. I suppose Parkdale or Holland will be eventually be developed to connect the areas.