1209 St. Laurent Blvd | 95m | 30f x2 | Proposed

[RogueNacho]

Would be cool if they could incorporate a sky bridge to the mall over St. Laurent Blvd.

[UrbOttawa]

Who's ready for two 30 storey RLA designed towers surrounded stroads and highway off-ramps? Doesn't get much better than this /s

[TransitZilla]

The site plan in the link above appears to show an entrance on Labrie from the sidewalk on the bridge of the overpass.

The problem is that the sidewalk between the other end of the overpass and the transit station is very poor- narrow, disconnected, no accessibility ramps. Hopefully something can be done with the mall owners to improve this.

[OTownandDown]

This looks like one of those Cities:Skylines youtube videos where the person straightens out the traffic jams.

Originally Posted by Harley613

The site as it is today:

[RideauRat]

low qual imagery. meh at least it's not 28 stories

[RuralCitizen]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

https://twitter.com/KatePorterCBC/st...70642594770947

This was way more interesting.
Why does every tower needs to have the same exact RLA style?

[RideauRat]

Devapps released the files

http://webcast.ottawa.ca/plan/All_Im...12-22-0089.PDF

[Harley613]

Proposed at 95 meters each, for the thread title.

[OTownandDown]

Originally Posted by RideauRat

low qual imagery. meh at least it's not 28 stories

We can call it Frontier Trois. The original Frontier at Blair, the revised and rotated Frontier at Montreal/Blair, and then this revised and rotated Frontier at St. Laurent.

ReFrontier, stylized as Re:Fr, or Reefer for short.

[waterloowarrior]

Would not want to live in that 367 sq ft ground floor studio facing the offramp, with the garbage room down the hall

[rocketphish]

1209 St. Laurent Limited Partnership is proposing to construct a residential apartment complex that will consist of two (2), 30-storey high-rise towers connected by a shared, seven (7) storey podium. The proposed development includes 640 residential units ranging from studio to 2-bedroom units including 338 units in Tower A and 302 units in Tower B. The underground parking garage contains 392 vehicular parking spaces and 640 bicycle parking spaces. The primary resident entrance to the building fronts St. Laurent Boulevard with additional access provided through entrances on the interior of the site, and at level 2 to Labelle Street to the south.

The proposed building has a seven (7) storey podium which extends along the west, south and east frontages of the site. Tower B is setback 2 metres from the podium to the east and south. Tower A is setback 7 metres from the south and 3.2 metres from the north. No stepback for the tower is proposed along St. Laurent Boulevard as a result of the large setback required by the Ministry of Transportation (MTO). The podium along this frontage is differentiated from the tower along this edge through a change in materials, and a reveal floor at level 8 which provides a visual separation between the two components. The proposed towers have floorplates of 757 square metres (Tower A) and 725 square metres (Tower B), respectively. The towers have been oriented north-south on the site and have 21.6 metres of separation from one another.

The ground floor abutting St. Laurent Boulevard has the active residential entrance and then features significant glazing. The interior space is occupied by a range of building amenities for residents. The amenity areas will activate the street, despite being set well back from the sidewalk.

The subject property has an approximate total area of 4,279 square metres. The subject property is bounded by roads on all four sides being: Lemieux Street on the east and north frontages, St. Laurent Boulevard on the west frontage, and Labelle Street to the south. The front lot line, per the Zoning By-law would be 15 metres of frontage along Lemieux Street, however the site has approximately 134 metres of total frontage on Lemieux Street, 59 metres of frontage on St. Laurent Boulevard and 72 metres of frontage onto Labelle Street.

Architect: RLA


Development application:
https://devapps.ottawa.ca/en/applica...2-0089/details

Location:








Siteplan:






Renderings:

[Harley613]

RLA is just pure trolling at this point.

[bartlebooth]

I recently learned through people I know in Ottawa's building industry that RLA has notoriously low fees. I imagine that makes it hard for other architecture firms to realistically compete for bigger projects like this. It also helps explain why so many developers use them and why we get such poor work.

[Arcologist]

This has got to be one of the worst developments this city has ever seen, and on so many levels.

First, location. It's been said numerous times in this thread, but placing condos/apts inside a circular on-ramp is a terrible idea. And it's not even just an on-ramp... it's an on-ramp surrounded by more layer after layer of unfriendly roadway.

Secondly, design. Can we please have a crappier design!?! Please!?! I mean this one just doesn't suck enough.

Next, integration. There is none. Absolutely no effort to take a bad location and integrate it into its surroundings. Being in a traffic island as it is, you'd think there would have been some attempt to connect to the mall via a pedestrian tunnel, or engage the mall owner to build more towers where the parking garage is so that a raised pedestrian walkway makes sense, or something, anything...

Then there's the issue with having 400 parking spots when you're 200m from transit, or 600+ bicycle parking spaces when there is no cycling infrastructure in the vicinity of the development.

I mean, come on.................................. Just bad on so many levels!

[J.OT13]

The Labelle overpass to the mall and transit station currently only has a stupidly narrow sidewalk. Don't even think a wheelchair could fit (if the overpass, not on the mall side). They are currently rehabilitating the overpass, so do we know if they are at least widening the sidewalk? Could/will the mall improve the intersection?

[RideauRat]

I'm going to go ahead and play devil's advocate and say that this isn't as bad as it seems. definitely sets a sub-standard precedent for St-Laurent TOD... let's hope our 36-story friend next door outshines this.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by RideauRat

I'm going to go ahead and play devil's advocate and say that this isn't as bad as it seems. definitely sets a sub-standard precedent for St-Laurent TOD... let's hope our 36-story friend next door outshines this.

Oh, I'll play that game!! How!?

Only way this could be worse is if we removed St. Laurent Station, and that could very well happen once OC Transpo decides to rebuild the upper-deck.

[RideauRat]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Oh, I'll play that game!! How!?

Only way this could be worse is if we removed St. Laurent Station, and that could very well happen once OC Transpo decides to rebuild the upper-deck.

lol yeah, it's tough advocating for RLA buildings but at least it's maximizing urban land use.

[RuralCitizen]

Originally Posted by Arcologist

First, location. It's been said numerous times in this thread, but placing condos/apts inside a circular on-ramp is a terrible idea. And it's not even just an on-ramp... it's an on-ramp surrounded by more layer after layer of unfriendly roadway.

This isn't a on-ramp. It is a regular street (Lemieux St.) with a bridge linking to the shopping mall ring road. You technically could say it is part of the 174 off-ramp, but it doesn't really affect this development. The actual on-ramp is 150m south of Lemieux St.

I agree the design of these 2 towers is just shitty. At this point it is quite insulting. But in terms of location, I don't think it is as horrible as you say it is. Other than the Mall property itself, this lot is the closest to this major transit station, and where you can build high density housing. It is very very close to a shopping mall. Maybe the street experience isn't the nicest (big parking lot on mall side), but these issues stem from the mall itself. They (the mall) could redesign their parking to provide a proper welcoming pedestrian experience. The bridge could have an improved sidewalk.

You've got to start somewhere. You cant just leave it a empty wasted plot of land especially in a housing crisis and where we are trying to contain sprawl. This lot deserves to be developed, but the design definitely could be revised for something more esthetically pleasing.

[Arcologist]

Originally Posted by RuralCitizen

This isn't a on-ramp. It is a regular street (Lemieux St.) with a bridge linking to the shopping mall ring road. You technically could say it is part of the 174 off-ramp, but it doesn't really affect this development. The actual on-ramp is 150m south of Lemieux St.

I'll fix my statement by saying the development is surrounded by roads. It's a very hostile

Originally Posted by RuralCitizen

You've got to start somewhere. You cant just leave it a empty wasted plot of land especially in a housing crisis and where we are trying to contain sprawl. This lot deserves to be developed, but the design definitely could be revised for something more esthetically pleasing.

I agree that we need more housing, but that can't mean just sticking ugly designs into hostile empty lots. I'm not sure what the solution is here, but this proposal is lacking in terms of reducing the hostility of the site.