A metallurgy district
The area between Booth and Rochester streets, south of the Queensway, is a bit drab now. It’s an underused complex of government buildings that the federal natural resources department no longer needs.
As federal departments consolidate or move, opportunities arise for Ottawa to become a more diverse and interesting city. The opportunity in this neighbourhood is too promising to ignore.
Urban design consultant George Dark has suggested the area could be for Ottawa what the Distillery District is to Toronto: an entertainment and retail zone that respects the spirit of its workaday history. Ottawa has done a fairly good job with its grand and pretty buildings in the parliamentary precinct, thanks in part to the National Capital Commission. But farther afield, the city’s past gets less respect. Indeed, the NCC’s razing of LeBreton Flats, followed by decades of utter neglect followed by slow renewal, is a model for what not to do.
There’s plenty of room for both new condos and reimaginings of old buildings on the parcel of land bounded by Norman, Booth, Rochester and Orangeville streets, northeast of the Carling-Preston intersection. It’s a highly accessible area, right off a Queensway ramp, fairly well served by buses and within walking distance of the O-Train station. Dow’s Lake and the Experimental Farm aren’t far, and neither are the restaurants and pubs of Preston. There’s been a major condo boom in the area in the last few years, so there’s definitely a market for more retail and entertainment in the area.
As Citizen columnist Phil Jenkins wrote recently, the Natural Resources buildings in the Booth Street area, with words like “mines” and “metallurgy” carved over their entrances, embody Canada’s preoccupation with the land and what lies underneath it. He wrote that the character of many of the buildings evokes “the atmosphere and period of H. G. Wells; I can imagine the Time Traveller from his The Time Machine, published in 1895, working by day in such as these red-brick and stone square affairs.” It’s easy to see how new retail and entertainment development on the block could build on a steampunk esthetic.
Now all the district needs is a good name.