Also on the NCC’s Wednesday agenda

Here are some other matters that the NCC’s board of directors dealt with during Wednesday’s 2 1/2-hour public meeting:

NORDSTROM FACADE

Subject to several conditions, the NCC board approved the exterior design of the planned new Nordstrom store in the Rideau Centre. Like the now-closed Sears store it will replace, the main outside entrance to the U.S. retailer’s 157,000-squarefoot store will be from the Mackenzie King bridge.

The design approved Wednesday includes porcelain cladding on the store’s exterior and sidewalk-level display windows for much of its length, allowing viewers on the street “to engage with the retail experience,” NCC staff said.

Overall, a staff report said, Nordstrom’s approach “is expected to have a positive impact on the Capital experience; reconstructed facades with improved and very transparent glazing are expected to promote increased street activity.”

Members of the NCC board seemed impressed. “It sure is a big improvement over what we have there now,” said Russell Mills, the chair of the board.

The board’s approval is subject to the developer, Cadillac Fairview, providing building design and construction drawings and material samples for NCC review, as well as a detailed construction schedule for the project.

Wednesday’s approval does not include the signage on the store, which is still being developed. Nordstrom expects to open the store — its first in Ottawa — in the spring of 2015.

VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM MEMORIAL

The NCC board formally approved a 5,000-square-metre site on Wellington Street just west of the Supreme Court building for a new $4-million memorial to victims of communism.

A private group, Tribute to Liberty, proposed the memorial in 2009. It received enthusiastic support from the Conservative government. But the project, which was originally supposed to be completed in 2011, foundered as the proponents struggled to raise money.

In August, the federal government announced it would contribute up to $1.5 million over two years toward the cost of the memorial.

The site on Wellington Street, owned by Public Works and Government Services Canada, is along Confederation Boulevard, which is intended as a focus for commemorations.

In light of that, NCC staff said, “the highest standard of design and landscape architecture” will be necessary. The NCC will review the design once it has been developed and must sign off before it can proceed.

The memorial is now expected to be completed in late 2014.

EMERALD ASH BORER

The emerald ash borer “continues to have a significant impact on operations and budgets,” says a staff report to the board.

As part of a new five-year contract for maintenance operations involving such NCC properties as the Rockcliffe and Aviation parkways, Rideau Falls and the diplomatic precinct, the successful bidder, Caltrio Inc., will cut down 1,500 dead and dying ash trees.

“This allows us to cope with the portion of the trees that present a public health safety hazard to uses of our green spaces in our Eastern Lands,” François Daigneault, a senior manager in the NCC’s capital lands and parks branch, told the board.

Those 1,500 trees represent only a fraction of the ash trees on NCC property that have been damaged by the invasive insect. Daigneault said staff will be presenting a separate “comprehensive strategy” to deal with the emerald ash borer problem at the board’s next meeting in January.