Yule Heibel's Bookmarks tagged development →  View Popular

Neil Malhotra, of Claridge, said company officials are excited about the opportunity to host the gallery and contribute to the city and country.

He said when the government announced a competition between private developers in nine cities to bid for the right to host the gallery, company officials realized they had an opportunity to do something of importance to the city and its citizens.

"We realized having the gallery in Ottawa is something people in this community care about, that it should happen, and that we had a piece of land that is in a perfect location for it," he said. "It's a rare opportunity to do something like this, and I think we will have a very good chance of winning the competition if we can get everything done on time."

The gallery was originally supposed to go into the former United States embassy building on Wellington Street across from the hill, but the Harper government cancelled that project last year, citing escalating costs, then announced the competition.

Ottawa is competing with Vancouver, Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary for the right to have the gallery, which is part of Library and Archives Canada.

The move to have a bidding war amongst cities and developers to host the gallery sparked outrage from people who feel it should be in Ottawa along with the rest of the Canada's national institutions. Others feel having a national collection housed in a privately owned building is distasteful and makes the country look bad on the international scene.

We get a shower of superlatives: $900 million, according to the New York financiers, 550 feet tall, 200 hotel rooms, and 400-500 condos.

But not to worry: These massive buildings will be "designed for neighborhood," meaning shops along the streetfront. The developers, with the engaging name of Hummingbird Advisors, are going to take a pretty dead block and "make it into a vital, vibrant pedestrian area." Of course, much of the lower level will be a blank wall concealing hotel ballrooms, but that's OK because the Monorail already blocks those views. (The architects' drawing artfully turns the Monorail into gossamer.)

Meanwhile, the building's design and materials were chosen with sustainability in mind. The steel used in construction is recycled, and the concrete and drywall have recycled content. The accessible green roof and landscaping will be drought resistant, says Kemp, so they won't need to be fertilized and irrigated.

D'Angelo is also aiming for universal accessibility in the design, which will allow people with disabilities to live in any apartment.

Peel Living, the region's non-profit housing company, estimates total building costs will be $2 million less than expected market costs for a comparable structure – because of D'Angelo's fundraising efforts and the efficiencies that come from his past experience.

This isn't the first time that D'Angelo, a partner in Martinway Contracting Ltd., has broken new ground in affordable housing. He won an award from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. in 2004 for Millbrook Place, a 163-unit building in Mississauga that houses seniors in one- and two-bedroom apartments in one section of the building and singles, including the formerly homeless and people with mental illness, in furnished bachelors in another section.

Relax, Toronto, all is not lost; the wheels of change grind no slower here than in any other city.

So says Dutch landscape architect Adriaan Geuze, whose firm, West 8, is now redesigning the central waterfront in partnership with Toronto's DTAH.

"Bureaucratic resistance is normal," he says, smiling reassuringly. "It's the same everywhere."

Geuze makes it clear he's not advocating the complete abolition of the car; he feels a certain amount of traffic is healthy. Besides, he adds, large pedestrian zones can "become scary places at night."

The intention, he insists, is to establish a state of equality between cars and people: "People will be happy, shop owners will be happy, and police will be happy."

"Toronto is ready to have a waterfront with its own identity," Geuze asserts. "It's a marvellous site, a south-facing waterfront. What more you could ask for?"

The answer, many might say, is greater public access. As well as controlling the car, we must ensure the waterfront is as inviting as possible. That's not to say people won't be living and working on the lake – they definitely will – but as Geuze likes to say, it's a question of balance. The point must be that we won't have to live on the waterfront to feel at home there.

Tom Blum, who leads a group called Neighbors Against Ramaz Tower, opposes this plan.

“It bothers us that a religious school is playing real estate games the way Donald Trump does,” Mr. Blum said, “not as they should be doing as a good neighbor.” He emphasized that there was unconditional support for building a new Ramaz school, but he said that the plan for a residential tower above it had come as a shock.

With the combined air rights, the tower would rise more than 100 feet above what the applicable zoning currently allows. Some neighbors, like Mr. Blum, are worried about losing their views, and although a number of local buildings are as tall as the proposed tower, few of them are midblock, as the synagogue and the school are.

Critics also say the synagogue is one of the city’s wealthiest, implying that a few hefty donations would render the residential tower unnecessary. But in the opinion of Rabbi Lookstein, the matter is not that simple. “There’s a limit to what people can give,” he said.