WESTBORO BEACH CLOSURE: Shutdown necessary, says NCC, despite delay to starting construction
Taylor Blewett, Ottawa Sun
Aug 16, 2022
Construction at the beach has been delayed "due to the difficult current conditions and supply chain issues," an NCC spokesperson said.
Ottawa has spent the summer without access to Westboro Beach, one of four in the city that are supervised and a popular place to access the waterfront. But did it have to?
In early June, as a local resident remembers it, the National Capital Commission fenced off the beach for its planned redevelopment, which is to include a new year-round pavilion, restaurant, outdoor showers and other upgrades. “But it appears not much happened,” said Westboro Beach Community Association co-president Len Fardella in a Sunday interview. “I think for a couple of months … nothing happened other than it being fenced off.”
Heading into the summer with the knowledge that Westboro Beach would be closed for its overhaul, Fardella said people were sad to lose access to the site, located along the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway, but said the NCC did “a wonderful job” with community consultation and the final design for the revamp, and there’s a lot of anticipation and excitement for the end result.
But some frustration has also been added to the mix, as the beach sat off-limits without the work that was expected to follow. Hindsight is 20/20, said Fardella, but “I think there was an opportunity that was missed” to wait to shut down the beach if it had been recognized that the redevelopment project was facing delays.
The fence hasn’t been enough to deter some beach users, according to Fardella, who recalled people breaching the barrier and using the waterfront over the Canada Day weekend.
Construction at the beach has been delayed “due to the difficult current conditions and supply chain issues,” said NCC spokesperson Sofia Benjelloun in a written statement, adding that components of the project are underway and the Crown corporation expects the work on the beach to start before the end of the month. The temporary closure was a decision made in collaboration with the city, she said, and it’s necessary for “security reasons, due to the surrounding areas being used for construction staging.”
Asked if delays have impacted the timeline for project completion, Benjelloun said the NCC plan remains to reopen the beach area next summer.
The current situation is disappointing, said area Coun. Jeff Leiper. But he was sympathetic to the position the NCC found itself in — “supply chain and personnel issues, labour issues have affected construction projects right across the city” — and without knowing the specifics of the challenges they’ve faced, he didn’t want to contend that the beach closure could have been handled differently.
Leiper’s hope is that the NCC is in fact able to deliver on the summer 2023 timeline to reopen the beach, which he described as a “much needed and much loved recreation amenity in our community.”
The NCC board approved the final design for the Westboro Beach redevelopment in April and wrote at the time that the “scale of the work” required its closure for the summer. Beach-goers were referred to Britannia, located roughly five kilometres west, and Mooney’s Bay to the south. Petrie Island in Orléans is the city’s other supervised beach.
City funding is supporting the NCC redevelopment as part of an agreement with the Crown corporation for use of its land for the Stage 2 LRT western extension.
The transformation of Westboro Beach includes a new surface parking lot on the other side of the SJAM parkway and a signalized intersection for crossing, as well as a conversion of the old parking area into park and green space.
A new zero-carbon park pavilion with a restaurant and community space will join a reworked version of the beach-level Strutt Pavilion — the brutalist concrete structure that’s served the site for more than five decades. Strutt is to remain seasonal while the new building will be open-year round, serving in winter as a stop on the groomed Kitchi Sibi trail, complete with ski racks.
https://ottawasun.com/news/local-news/su...wcm/5ab7c16a-84a3-41cf-8747-3f19b9576aa9
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