Mizrahi builds 1451 Wellington condo with community consultation in Wellington West
S. Evelyn Cimesa, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: April 14, 2017 | Last Updated: April 15, 2017 10:59 AM EDT
When we encounter something beautiful, our response isn’t intellectual, it’s emotional. It could be a lively village square, a work of art or even a person. It holds our attention, makes us feel good and we know, at our core, that something is right.
Ottawa’s Wellington West area has this characteristic. It’s a vibrant village-like community at the edge of Westboro, layered with history and vitality. It’s as accessible to the wilderness of Gatineau Park as it is to the cultural attractions downtown. It’s in this neighbourhood that Mizrahi Developments is developing their luxury condominium building, 1451 Wellington, at the corner of Island Park Drive.
“When we went to redevelop this corner, we understood [its] importance,” said Sam Mizrahi, owner of Mizrahi Developments, a Toronto-based company. “We understood the importance of it being designated as a gateway site by the city of Ottawa, in specifically the Westboro area. And, we came in to do a design and a type of architecture that was going to have a very positive impact.”
Mizrahi Developments started discussing the project with the neighbours in 2013, before they had even purchased the site or submitted a planning application. The company spent months contacting neighbours and holding town hall meetings to give the locals an opportunity to voice their concerns and wishes for the development. Mizrahi says that this dialogue helped the developers to understand the condo’s impacts on the neighbourhood. Above all, they wanted to understand what the community wanted to see done with the space, and an adjacent piece of green space.
“We wanted to take that vision and take those elements and start to reverse engineer the building, the site plans, the parkette features and so forth and start to visualize and echo what we were hearing in the collaboration with the neighbours,” said Mizrahi.
The condo was given the go-ahead by the Ontario Municipal Board after a dispute over its height. Mizrahi came back with some tweaks that gave the building the “wow factor” the OMB was seeking for the corner, in exchange for its 12-storeys.
1451 Wellington West anchors one of the city’s most well-known intersections at Island Park Drive with an architectural statement that Mizrahi has designed to contribute to the thriving mix of green spaces, recreation, retail, public transportation and bike paths all within walking distance.
Mizrahi Developments has set out to redefine expectations for homeowners, starting with understanding the emotional investment people make when deciding on their new home. Residents of 1451 Wellington will be attended to with valet parking and a 24-hour concierge. The building will feature amenities such as hot tub, pool, entertainment suite and fitness retreat, as well as a car washing bay and the dog washing station in the parking garage.
1451 Wellington features 95 suites across its 12 storeys. Homeowners can pick between one-bedroom (578 – 686 square feet), one-bedroom plus den (681 – 841 square feet), two-bedroom (914 square feet) and two-bedroom plus den with two (710 – 1439 square feet) or three (1543 – 2475 square feet) bathrooms. Mizrahi Developments also offers the opportunity for homeowners to custom-design their own home with up to four bedrooms.
The suites themselves feature an abundance of distinctive details, such as tall French doors, eight-to-10 foot ceilings, classical architectural mouldings, 10-inch thick walls, heavy wooden doors and luxury fixtures for the kitchen and bathrooms. The STC (superior sound transmission class) windows muffle the noise of the outside world and offer panoramic views of the Ottawa River, Gatineau Hills or the residential neighbourhood.
Each home will come loaded with technology; homeowners can control temperature and ambient music and even view who’s at the front door using their mobile device. They’re also pre-wired with the CAT6 computer network state-of-the-art security system, which can communicate with the monitoring system of choice.
In addition to the building itself, Mizrahi Developments is also developing the area surrounding 1451 Wellington to benefit the neighbourhood. Mizrahi says that the company spent over two years collaborating with the city of Ottawa planning department and the community to design and evolve the project into what what it is today. As a result, the site will include a parkette with a playground and incorporate an existing bike path and walkway. The parkette is designed to add life to an under-used parcel of land.
“For me, that’s a transformational change — that’s a community benefit, a neighbourhood benefit— that will inspire others to look at developments in the area, and the city of Ottawa as a whole, and incorporate … more public realm features,” says Mizrahi. He adds, “We want it to be more artistic and something that goes beyond the building and creates more of a soul for the neighbourhood.”
Mizrahi Developments opened a $1.5-million state-of-the-art sales gallery for the property at 1451 Wellington West. It’s the largest investment a property developer has ever made in a showroom in the city of Ottawa. It provides the public with a near-exact model of the development’s condominium suites.
1451 Wellington is aiming to fill the high-end luxury condominium gap by providing the public with a home built for a lifestyle of entertaining and travel, with fewer rooms, less maintenance and less worry than with a standalone house. Homeowners can now embrace the condo lifestyle with the same feel, space and customized options as they would in their homes, except with panoramic views of our National Capital Region.
1451 Wellington
What: Luxury condominiums
Builder: Mizrahi Developments
Prices: Prices depend on square-footage but start at over $500,000 and exceed $4,000,000.
Presentation Gallery: 1451 Wellington Street West
Hours: Monday to Friday: 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM; Saturday: 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM; Sunday: 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Information: (613) 798-4663,
Reception@1451Wellington.ca, 1451wellington.ca
http://ottawacitizen.com/life/homes/...ellington-west
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