The Bell Machine

As a cyclist, I'd never had a reason to enter the parkade at Place Bell (160 Elgin) until recently. Even though its 10 floors are shorter than a regular one (since it's just exposed concrete), it's still dwarfed by the 27-storey Place Bell. This is looking from the roof of the parkade to the top of Place Bell.

In addition to learning the parkade's height, I also discovered that the parkade is square. If I understand correctly, they needed to build it above-ground because of the soft soil underneath the site.

Claridge is building four more towers of the same height next door to this parkade--two across Nepean as part of the 187 Metcalfe development (the one that Council sped through the approvals on the promise of a portrait gallery--since changed to a grocery store), and two more at 89-91 Nepean. 70 Gloucester, the twin of 89-91 Nepean, went to Planning Committee on Tuesday.

When the Centretown Plan was developed, it went up to Gloucester Street, except for a notch to exclude Place Bell due to its obvious incongruence with the neighbourhood. It's a shame, then, that Claridge got away with using 1960s buildings to justify heights far above those in the development plans for the neighbourhood.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]