Lansdowne Park plans taking shape

Posted Feb 16, 2012 By Laura Mueller

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The most up-to-date drawings of the plans for Lansdowne were revealed at city hall on Feb. 7 and show a lot of red-brick buildings surrounded by trees. Mayor Jim Watson says the revitalized site will be

City of Ottawa

The most up-to-date drawings of the plans for Lansdowne were revealed at city hall on Feb. 7 and show a lot of red-brick buildings surrounded by trees. Mayor Jim Watson says the revitalized site will be "alive and a place to live."

EMC news - A tree-filled Lansdowne Park with a lot of red brick buildings makes up the revised vision for the site presented at city hall on Feb. 7.

It took six months of haggling among a team of experts to produce a more detailed design of the storefront retail, glass-fronted cinema and wood-wrapped sports stadium, said planning committee chairman Peter Hume.

"Creativity often comes from a conflict of ideas," said the Alta Vista councillor, who is also a member of the design review panel for the Lansdowne project. "The process has been long and at times, extremely difficult."

The project will welcome visitors back into the "park," which has mostly been closed off to the public and used for private events in recent memory. Designers and city council members emphasized the project will make Lansdowne a year-round destination with shops, homes, events and activities each day and night.

The revitalized Frank Clair Stadium is one of the first elements that will be constructed and is supposed to be ready for Canadian Football League play by 2014. The stadium's designer, Robert Claiborne, said the venue will hold up to 40,000 with the addition of temporary seating.

Claiborne also indicated that floor-level club seats will be added to the stadium.

The new south stands will be ringed by a curved wooden "veil" that will act as a transition between the curving landscape of the canal and the stadium, said George Dark, a planner who is also a member of the design review panel. It's not meant to protect the stands from the elements, but will act more as a design element, he added.

The commercial "mixed-use" section of the site off Bank Street will help reconnect the commercial strips between the Glebe and Old Ottawa South, Mayor Jim Watson said.

"It has been a gap in the urban fabric. This reconnects it," said John Clifford, a principal at Perkins Eastman, which is in charge of the commercial-residential sector design.

He referred to the nine-building portion of the Lansdowne redevelopment as the "urban village."

One of the buildings, listed as Block A, at the corner of Holmwood and Bank, features an environmentally-friendly "green roof," and Dark said there are plans to put solar panels on the roof of the Horticulture Building.

The city is still awaiting designs for a few towers that will be situated at Bank Street and Holmwood Avenue.

The city is still awaiting resolution of the legal challenge to the city's Lansdowne partnership with Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, but the mayor said it makes sense to soldier on with the plans in the meantime. John Martin of the Lansdowne Conservancy said he expects his legal challenge to be heard by a panel of three judges in Toronto in March.