By Peter Ferguson and John Chenier
Rideau Street, like most older commercial thoroughfares in the city, is gradually taking on a new persona. Like Bank, Queen or Sparks streets, it is no longer a place where you find all the major movie theatres, big department stores and the fine restaurants of their day.
True, the stretch of Rideau from Sussex to William Street carries on the tradition with the Hudson’s Bay and the Rideau Centre, but as you continue to travel east the commercial sector might be charitably described as “mixed”, with an uncertain future. But if you look up you can see that Rideau Street is entering a new phase.
The Rideau Street corridor, the area bounded by George Street to the north and Besserer to the south has become a home for thousands of residents. And there are plans to house many more in the months and years to come. By 2015, another 1500 to 2000 residential units will be added to this corridor. A number of these units will be occupied by people who are not setting down roots but, comparatively speaking, just passing through the neighbourhood.
The most transient of these are students. Rideau Street now has three (soon to be four) large student residences that accommodate more than 2000 students. All of these residences were converted from other uses and fit well with what will be, in the new city plan, a new emphasis on the adaptive reuse of heritage and other buildings that have been part of the local urban fabric. Theo was formerly an office building originally designed in the unique, “Brutalist” style of architecture. Rideau Residence was originally a hotel and the Friel Residence was originally designed to accommodate seniors. A fourth residence is under construction to the west of the Rideau Residence. The influx of students into the community has contributed to the life and vitality of the street. It also helps explain why the liquor store at the corner of King Edward and Rideau is the biggest and busiest in the city.
Another major source of transients is the large apartment and condominium complexes recently built, under construction or in the planning stages. For example, Prince Developments is seeking approval of a 24-storey combination hotel/residence between Dalhousie and Cumberland, the site of the former beer store beside the Waller Mall. East of Cumberland, Claridge has approval to erect three towers on the site that now houses the Metro grocery store. If you include the long-standing St. George condominium on George Street, there will be nine buildings of 24-storeys contained in four square blocks.
Further east on Rideau Street at the corner of Chapel, Trinity Developments has started construction of what will be twin 25storey towers with 9-storey connecting residential podiums. There will be ground-floor commercial space in the podium facing Rideau Street. Further east at the Cobourg intersection a new nine-storey apartment building is under construction by the Chenier Group and is slated to open in 2021. Across Rideau, in January, Richcraft will be starting the construction of a condominium project which will open in 2022. In all of this area east of King Edward, the vacant lots and dilapidated structures will disappear, and replaced by new residential structures, new small retail and new neighbourhood vitality.
Many of the units in the new buildings are small studios designed for students or as a pied-a-terre for commuters or travellers. Others are designed to appeal to first-time buyers looking to get a stake in the real-estate market before moving on to larger accommodation in the community or elsewhere. Another major markets for these smaller units are empty-nesters looking to downsize or snowbirds wanting a place they can lock and leave when they head south.
On the positive side, it has not been necessary to demolish residences for these buildings although it is worth noting that some structures that are now gone did have heritage significance. And although Lowertown is losing some accommodation suitable for families in the process, the influx of this type of accommodation is changing the makeup and the dynamics of the community. Lowertown is changing and could continue to change given the city’s determination to re-purpose land in the vicinity of LRT stations.
All of this underscores the limits to community planning as we know it. Many would argue that as part of the planning for where the community is headed–determining appropriate land use and standing by this determination–has been jettisoned in favour of requests for spot re-zoning. But this is what happens when zoning is badly out-dated and inadequate when it comes to defining or preserving community, a North-America-wide problem.
Peter Ferguson is vice-president of the Lowertown Community Association and former chair of the LCA Planning Committee, and John Chenier is editor of the Echo.