Acoustic issues delay Senate move to temporary site
Engineers and architects will have to construct a baffle to block the noise
OTTAWA— The Senate has delayed its move into a temporary home, refitted at a cost of $219 million, after recent tests uncovered an acoustic problem that would disrupt discussions in the Senate chamber. The last-minute hiccup means further work to repair the problem, forcing the Senate to delay its return from holiday break until mid-February, about three weeks later than expected.
The Senate is moving out of its current home on Parliament Hill to a restored train station to make way for an extensive refurbishment of Centre Block.
But the open design of the new chamber allows noise to spill over from outside, including a security screening station.
The chamber has been largely finished for several months but it wasn’t until a dress rehearsal on Nov. 30, with employees playing the roles of senators in the chamber, guests in the visitors’ gallery and people mingling outside that the problem was uncovered.
“Sound was leaching over top and into the chamber. We’ve got security on the other side here that does the second-level screening. You could hear people talking,” said Sen. Scott Tannas, who chairs the senate’s working group on its long-term plans.
“We ran it like it was the Senate, we had the screening going, people yakking in the back, public gallery and everything. It became clear that there was just too much noise coming over,” he said.
“It’s one of those things that whatever simulations didn’t pick it up, but we’ll get it solved,” he told reporters Thursday during a tour of the building.
Now engineers and architects will have to construct a baffle to close the gap and block the noise.
Work scheduled to start Monday will take until Feb. 7, delaying the Senate move until Feb. 19.
The grand Beaux-Arts building served as Ottawa’s train station between 1912 and 1966 when rail services were relocated outside the downtown core. The building lost its gloss after it was converted to a government conference centre with a warren of meeting rooms filling its once grand halls and the windows in the main waiting room covered over.
Senate staff and architects showed off the refurbished landmark building Thursday, touting efforts to restore its heritage features while at the same time modernize the structure, that was in worse shape than expected.
Those features include a waiting room with its soaring ceiling and its distinctive plaster work and windows that let the sun stream in for the first time in decades.
Chandeliers tucked away in storage for decades have been upgraded and now hang in the entrance.
“I think it’s a wonderful example of returning one of the finest buildings in North America to a fantastic public use,” Rob Wright, assistant deputy minister, parliamentary precinct branch, with Public Works and Government Services said.
New staircases and elevators improve movement around the building and helped add to its seismic protections, Wright said.
The new building will also provide Canadians with a new window into Senate debates — for the first time, proceedings in the chamber will be televised, 41 years after television was introduced in the House of Commons.
“We’ll have a more open Senate, more accessible to the population and to the media,” said Sen. Raymonde Saint- Germain.
Once the Centre Block renovation is finished and the Senate returns there, it’s expected this building will revert to serving as a conference centre. Tannas said the renovation was needed anyway and the cost of the added work to tailor it to Senate business added $11 million to the budget.