Merry Christmas

Most of the construction sites downtown (or at least the ones near Elgin) have installed decorative lights on their tower cranes. The first to do so was Morguard at the 150 Elgin office tower behind the former Friday's roast beef house:

On top of the building is a mock Christmas tree in lights. They also had a hallowe'en themed banner on their building back in October. Some festive folks there!

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

Peds on Weds: street trees as eye candy

Street trees/urban trees improve the urban fabric and increase property values. The shade they provide in the summer softens the pedestrian experience.

These ideas are generally taken for granted among urban planney-types. It is these positive associations that get trees sprinkled into architectural drawings such as this one for the building under construction at 150 Elgin:

This little stand on Preston and Louisa, even without the blooms Eric found, make a pretty solid aesthetic case for landscaping over vanscaping.

More often, however, they go in looking like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, like these three installed on Metcalfe back in 2010:

When the Garden of the Provinces and Territories was built in the early '60s, it too had tiny trees, as seen in this photo via Urbsite

Half a century on, these trees have grown considerably, giving the park a much different (though not necessarily worse) feel. The canopy provides a low green ceiling to the park, making it a more private and reflective space to appreciate the grass and water features.

Street trees have a harder time than those in parks or front yards, due to the smaller area of land for rain to fall into and the increased exposure to salt, but they do sometimes make it. This row is on the north side of Place Bell, 160 Elgin at Gloucester. At the far left you can just make out Grant House (Friday's) and the construction site for the 150 Elgin office tower, mentioned above. The tree canopy has grown higher than the artificial canopy surrounding the building, but there is still much light coming through.

Closer to Elgin, the trees are noticeably shorter. There may be many reasons for this, but I suspect the tower of 160 Elgin blocks a lot of sunlight, stunting their growth. (Indeed, you can see in Google Street View that the one at the Elgin end, which would get more morning sun, is taller)

On the Nepean Street side of Place Bell looking west toward Metcalfe, the story is a bit different. The condo towers at 18 and 22 Nepean Street block out much of the light that would fall on the North sidewalk, the awning blocks out the sky immediately above, and the tree canopy blocks out the sliver of sky that remains. At eye level, there's little sunlight, and nothing but concrete, bare glass, and tree trunk to look at. The view on the North side will soon resemble this as 150 Elgin climbs toward the sky.

While we can't remove the buildings that are already there, we can make sure that as new towers are built there is sufficient space between them to let light through. The 27-storey tower approved for 91 Nepean and its identical siblings at 70 Gloucester and 96 Nepean, were approved by City Council on lots barely wider than the towers themselves. That sets a nasty trend: if the lots next door are allowed to be built the same way, we'll have a wall of building as dark as the one across from Place Bell, only twice as tall and closer to the street. There are trees shown on the drawings for 96 Nepean, but this is mostly eye candy on the drawings; we (and the future residents of the building) would be lucky if anything green grows at all.

It's actually fairly impressive how well these rows of trees surrounding Place Bell have survived in what looks like such small plots of ground*. And that's not a bad thing—removing these trees would certainly make this scene even worse—but the trees were originally added to soften the view at eye level, and now that they have grown beyond that height, something else is needed to fill this role so that this stretch of sidewalk can be more hospitable again. Maybe not a Zen pond, but something.

For now, the trees on the opposite side of the street at 150 Elgin will probably have to suffice.

(*See the street tree-related posts in my series on the reconstruction projects for Bank Street and Somerset Street)

[Tune in on Wednesdays at noon for a new pedestrian-themed blog post. View the Pedestrians label for previous Peds on Weds posts]

Upcoming meetings and events in Centretown - including tonight!

The following message was sent to the e-mail list of the Centretown Citizens Community Association early this morning. Join the CCCA and get on the e-mail list to receive 2-3 updates per month from the CCCA. Note that Images of Centretown is my personal blog and not a blog of the CCCA.


Dear CCCA members and followers,

There are some important meetings coming up in the next couple of weeks:

Tonight, Wednesday, March 23, 7-9pm
Public meeting on 224 Lyon (at Gloucester) development
7pm, Ottawa City Hall, 110 Laurier (Richmond Room)

The CCCA has already submitted comments lauding many positive aspects of the plan, but asking that the height and setback limits not be increased. The CCCA has also asked that mature trees removed for this development be replaced by more trees (on site or elsewhere), asking for visitor parking to be included, and asking that, if the City grants the height increase, that it seek a Section 37 agreement for the increased density.

The City of Ottawa has more information on this proposal here:
http://app01.ottawa.ca/postingplans/appDetails.jsf?lang=en&appId=__7FKLD1


Other rezoning applications

Splash!

This past weekend had some crazy weather. Snow on Friday, heavy rain on Saturday, and more snow on Sunday.

During Saturday's incessant downpour, there were some pretty large puddles in Centretown. Sidewalks were covered with ice and water, which were dammed up by the snowbanks that couldn't be removed in time.

Others, including Mark Rehder, have posted photos of the puddles, which put to shame the ones I had dubbed "Lake Florence" in February.

This one at Bank and Gloucester wasn't the worst of them, but it was a few inches deep in the crosswalk. This pedestrian was walking intently, staring forward and apparently oblivious to the puddle.

He walked right through it and it went up to his ankle. A fraction of a second after I took this photo, he cursed and spun around to see what he'd just stepped in.

It's a pity that we spent so much money to rebuild Bank Street and there are still depressions like this that attract puddles. Lyon Street, which was resurfaced last year, seemed to be pretty clear when I looked up and down it from the intersection at Florence.

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

Nagle House, 77 Gloucester

This is Nagle House, at 77 Gloucester street, just West of Metcalfe. It is one block to the north of 89-91 Nepean, a pair of lots on which Claridge wants to build a 27-storey tower.

The heritage plaque on the house writes, "Thought to be the oldest house in Centretown, this house was built for Richard Nagle, a successful dealer in timber limits."

The Bytown Museum's Capital Neighbourhoods website lists little more about the house than is on the plaque.

A Google search for Richard Nagle brings up only a few more details. A web page listing Ancestors of Ryan Todd Morgan writes, "66. Richard NAGLE was born 1810 in Ireland and was baptized in Ireland. He died 1877 in Ottawa, Canada. Richard married Margaret MCCARTHY." The site says they had a child, Ann in Clare County, Ireland in 1832, who died in Kansas in 1920.

Another source he married Mary O-Brien in 1854, presumably after Margaret died in 1850.

As for 89-91 Nepean Street, it's pretty frightening what Claridge is asking for on that site. I'll spare the details here, but suffice it to say they're asking for a lot and offering nothing in return. For full details, check out the CCCA's letter to the City regarding this site. The letter includes a plethora of reasons why this application shouldn't be permitted, and Councillor Holmes' comments of a similar nature. This one will go to Planning Committee in the new year, but City staff are compiling their report on the application.

As the Ottawa Citizen writes in a recent editorial, intensification is good, but it needs to be done with a human face.

The CCCA's next regular board meeting is tomorrow, Tuesday, December 21, 2010 at 7pm at City Hall (Honeywell Room). All are welcome. There is a vacancy on the Board that will hopefully be filled at the meeting. Check the CCCA's home page for the agenda.

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

Bank Street Phase III, Part 6: Bike racks

[This post is part of a series on Bank Street's new look. See the introduction and part I here.]

Last time, I talked about the surfaces on Bank Street. Today's post is on my favourite topic--the bike racks.

As described in this panel from the March 2008 consultation, there isn't enough room on Bank for separate artworks as part of the Percent for Art program. So the decision was made to combine art with function by having bike racks with artistic designs.

A mainstay of bike parking in Ottawa are these blue advertising-supported Velocity racks. There are other designs too, not all of which are successful. Unfortunately, as these little stickers reminded us this week, most of the blue racks are removed for the winter:

The most secure year-round place to lock your bike to is parking meters. However, this has two problems for Bank Street. For one, parking meters will be phased out for Pay & Display over the next few years. But they also don't support the bike at two points, as recommended in the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals' Bicycle Parking Guidelines, this unfortunate Bank Street cyclist's bike is a case in point: it's fallen and the front wheel may get hit by a car, and passers-by may think it abandoned, inviting tripping, vandalism, and other damage.

At a few of the side-street bulbouts, these ring-and-post racks were installed. There are a couple other shots of these in Part 4 of the series, benches. Ring-and-post is one of the better types of racks, though many of the ones on Bank Street were located far from where cyclists wanted to park.

Here's one of the ring-and-post racks removed during construction, next to the Scotiabank at Gloucester. You can see the clump of concrete at the base of the post that served as an anchor for the bike rack in the sidewalk.

North of Laurier, a ring-and-post variant, designed by a Montreal company, were installed, and are kept in place throughout the year. They certainly have a different aesthetic to them. I've heard complaints from some cyclists that these racks don't allow you to use the central post for locking a U-lock, which limits your options for securing your bike. I've noticed myself that there are too few of them around when you want to have a meeting at the Bridgehead at Bank and Albert and the committee members all got there by bike.

As part of the reconstruction for phases II and III, these triangular Cora racks were installed at many corners (this one at Bank and Cooper, North-East) for higher capacity bike parking, to take overflow when the racks along the street are full. They're also better for longer-term parking than the parking meters or the artistic racks, because there's less pedestrian traffic going by to bump into your bike.

They were particularly useful over the past winter, because the new artistic bike racks weren't installed until this year. They eventually came, and here are two of them installed in front of the Rogers Plus store at Bank and Gilmour. Their panels haven't been installed yet.

Here are some more at Bank and Flora, looking South toward the Queensway underpass at the European Glass and Paint store.

Normally bike parking is in high demand at Herb & Spice on Bank at Lewis, but on the day I took this photo, two dogs were all that was parked on the rack:

To install the racks, these cylindrical cores were cut out of the sidewalk down to the gravel, and the new racks are secured to strong foundations underneath. This one, of course, is at Bank and Gloucester looking North toward Laurier.

The racks are outfitted with these fingers which hold the steel panels. The horizontal piece will also double as another place to wrap your lock around.

The steel panels were laser-cut and delivered separately on pallets. There are 90 racks in all, featuring 30 different designs.

There was an official unveiling ceremony for the racks, held November 4, 2009 at Café Suprème at Bank and Cooper. Here we see one of the artists, Howie Tsui, describing the inspiration for his design to the crowd inside the coffeeshop.

All the designs were on display at the event, and each design was accompanied by a description of the design written by its artist.

And the official unveiling! This rack was designed by Roy Lumagbas, who is standing at the far left. (Photo courtesy of Councillor Holmes' office)

Finally, the completed designs are installed all down Bank Street. I quite like this stylistic representation of a cyclist.

And what's Bank Street without pigeons!

Café Suprème serves an ideal backdrop for this design. Can you see what it is*?

Be sure to check out my previous two posts on bicycle parking and design, as well as my other posts on cycling.

Tune in again in a few days for the next, and possibly last, installment of this series.

*It's a frog.

Bank Street Phase III, Part 3: Trees

[This post is part of a series on Bank Street's new look. See the introduction and part I here. Due to a typo, this post didn't go up yesterday as scheduled.]

Note: Bank Street will reopen to vehicular traffic this evening, two weeks ahead of schedule!

Last time, I talked about the new decorative light standards along the reconstructed parts of Bank Street.

As with the street lamps, the new trees (of which there are many more than were before) have different cages on the sections North and South of Gloucester Street, and the infrastructure beneath them vary as well.

Here's a photo courtesy of the Midcentury Modernist of the tree vaults in the Nortnern end of Bank Street. This shot is in front of the new Telus building at Bank and Slater, under construction in May 2007. In the foreground, you can see the trees planted in rather large plots.

The pits were then covered with precast concrete blocks that do double duty to cover the tree vaults and to provide underfoot support as sidewalks. A tall, narrow cage protects the trees from various elements, and was specifically designed to be secure enough to lock your bike to. This one is between Slater and Albert, across from Snider Plaza.

In the foreground, they've made a gravel pathway across the construction zone for pedestrians to cross Bank. But the thing to look at in this photo is the set of trees at Bank and Gilmour in late May, partway through reconstruction. The five trees along this stretch are in front of the CCOC building, and are owned and maintained (i.e. watered) by the CCOC. Prior to the reconstruction, these were about the only trees along Bank Street.

This one at the end of the row (shown in late April) didn't survive the reconstruction. You can also see the old tree guards that were on them. (As of early November the old tree guards have been removed, but new ones haven't been added yet).

In late July, that tree was removed, but I believe the others were undisturbed. One of the problems with the trees in this location is that they don't get much sun.

Here's the uprooted tree, again in late July:

In early October, the trees for this stretch were delivered in front of the Bridgehead on Bank and Gilmour, across from Herb & Spice. As you can see, the sidewalks have already been poured in this section, unlike in the first section of Bank, where the trees were installed before the sidewalk was poured. Incidentally, I hear through the grapevine that the two angel murals above Wilde's (visible in the background of this shot) will be replaced sometime soon.

Here are some of those tree vaults in Phase II, looking North from Lisgar to Nepean, with the Grace Ottawa food store at right. As you can see, the tree vaults are much smaller than in the first phase, but are bigger than the band of sidewalk that goes along the street:

Here's a closeup of a tree partially planted in one of the vaults. It looks like the sidewalk on the far side hasn't been poured yet. While I usually stick my camera through the fence, this can give a false impression that the views of the construction are unobstructed, so every now and then I take a shot with the fence in the foreground as a reminder. This is on the North-East side of Bank and Nepean, looking South-West, in late October 2008.

Here are some of the new precast concrete pieces for the tree vaults, awaiting installation just South of Bank and Gloucester. One is already installed around the tree behind them. (November 2008)

Unfortunately, the guards weren't installed before the winter (which did hit early last year, in fairness) and many of the vault covers were cracked and damaged by the snowplows, including this one near Bank and Lisgar (Wallack's in the background):

This past August, the new guards were installed around the Phase II trees, which had been planted the previous fall. They're a shorter, more stylistic variant. They're sturdier, and wrap around the concrete base of the tree vault covers, to keep the pieces tight. This should help to avoid the type of damage caused over the past winter. (Note: Colour has been "warmified" on this photo)

Note the detail on these tree guards. They have little round balls at the tips of the fins, no doubt to minimize eye-poking, but they also add a decorative touch.

When the trees are in full leaf, they really add colour to the street. This gingko tree (described in this PDF as "extremely hardy but slow growing") on Bank and Cooper in Phase III looks nice in the early September's sun:

Oh, and fear not, a new tree was planted at Bank and Gilmour to replace the one removed.

The tree guards on Phase II and III's trees are noticeably shorter than the tall, slim ones on Phase I. Here are two along the vacant lot at Florence (photo taken last week):

Which makes a great segue for the next post: Benches. Tune in on Saturday for that post.

Bank Street Phase III, Part 2: Lights

[This post is part of a series on Bank Street's new look. See the introduction and part I here]

Last time, I talked about the new, wider sidewalks, and the installation process for those. This part I'll be talking about the new street lamps on Bank.

Phase I of the reconstruction project, from Wellington to Laurier, has these decorative lamps. They have a flat arm, from which is suspended a round lantern. I took this photo a month ago, after the Shopper's Drug Mart moved out of this building (it's now on the ground floor of the Mondrian). What I find remarkable about it is that the noon-hour pedestrian traffic actually resembles the types of busy pedestrian environments you see in architectural renderings:

But I'm focusing more on Phase II and Phase III of Bank Street, from Laurier to Somerset and Somerset to Arlington, respectively. They have a different style of lamp from the Northern section of Bank.

Here's what the street lamps looked like. They only decorative element were the retro Bank Street Promenade roundels. You'll note that the old posts were suspended on pyramidal bases. When the ground freezes and thaws, the sidewalks ride up and down the slanted surface, creating cracks when they settle back down.

The new streetlamp bases can be seen here lying just south of Somerset, awaiting installation. They are elliptical on the cross-section, but the sides are vertical. They have large bolts built in for attaching the street posts, and holes in the side connect to conduits coming through the middle for electrical connections. Some more concrete utility access ports are stacked behind them.

As mentioned in the previous post, Phase II of construction (Laurier to Somerset, mostly done in 2008) had separate installation for the pieces of sidewalk with and without lamppost bases. This allowed for views like this one, where we can see the connections under the sidewalk looking North from Lisgar. The photo was taken in late October 2008, when the Mondrian's podium was still under construction in the background.

South of Somerset, in Phase III, the sidewalks were constructed more continuously. In this shot (from the same day as the photos in front of Hartman's in the previous post), it's clear that the square of sidewalk with the lamppost is being installed at the same time as the other squares on the block.

As you can see above, they were pouring the sidewalk where the lamppost had already been installed on the West side of the street, in front of Hartman's. Across the street at the same time, they were installing the lamppost where the sidewalk had already been poured. This was at the end of this past August, as you can see by the nearly-completed Mondrian.

Here's a lamp in early September near Gilmour, shortly after installation. They had not yet been illuminated. There's something about the style of the lampposts that doesn't fit here, though. It's just too modern for the ornate buildings on this block.

Not that they're ugly. They make a decorative touch on the rest of Bank street, and the series of them creates a nice rhythm when you view them at the right angle. This shot is looking South along the East sidewalk from Gloucester.

Unfortunately, the hydro wires were only buried North of Gladstone, paid for by the Bank Street Business Improvement Association (BIA). South of Gladstone, there's no BIA to pay to bury the hydro wires, and the City didn't want to cover the cost, so wooden poles were kept for overhead hydro wires. As with on Preston Street, a variant of the street lamps were used to keep the rhythm of the lamps while using the wooden poles (having separate lampposts in addition to the hydro poles would have cluttered up the streetscape too much).

But the result is really really tacky. Here's one of them in front of the Metropolitan Bible Church building:

I was also surprised to see many of the old poles with the 50's Diner-style Bank Street Promenade roundels still up after much of the work was done. Particularly this one at Bank and Florence, where the sign was destroyed in the fire that consumed the building on the corner back in 2003. Surely they wouldn't leave that old frame up there?

There's another one here in front of Hackett Shoemakers at Frank Street. This view is from late April, before most of the work reached this part of Bank Street.

Not sure which one is Hackett? Maybe that's because its sign was obscured by this roundel, which is still there after the new lampposts were installed!

Now, a keen eye would note that the sidewalk squares with these old posts were not poured with concrete. That's because the posts were only kept long enough for the buried hydro wires to be installed and activated. When the posts and overhead wires were no longer needed, they were removed in late October/early November, greatly simplifying the streetscape (though one of those big ugly sign advertisement boxes was installed in front of the Watch Clinic). Note also that a Vietnamese place is opening up in the former Don Alfonso's restaurant. Vistek has also moved from this location, down to where the art supply store used to be at Argyle.

The new lamps create a great ambiance for Bank Street. I had to take a few versions of this photo to get the lighting right. But this photo (looking South from Gilmour) was taken at 9:30 pm and it's pretty dead--let's hope that when the street is re-opened Bank Street once again becomes a vibrant place to live, work, and shop all hours of the day.

Tune in in a couple days for Part III: Trees