Hotel Lobby
Sparks street is in great need of a makeover: something exciting to bring some life back into this area. Fortunately, there's a new project coming up that will hopefully inspire more people to improve this area of town and make it shine. Re Hotel is a new boutique hotel and residences pioneered by David Choo of Ashcroft Urban Developments and designed by architect Roderick Lahey of Roderick Lahey Architects and by interior design firm Cecconi Simone.
6th Floor lounge
An exclusive launch will take place this Wednesday on Spark Street. Amongst other things, guests will be able to see the floor plans and a fully decorated model suite. I believe David Choo, the visionary behind the project, who also recently started his own blog. Other Ottawa personalities will also attend this event. Based on these renderings, it will look really nice!
Residential lobby
Sky lounge
renderings : designtor
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Sparks street is one of those places in Ottawa that seems to have so many things going for it (downtown, near parliament, near hotels, near offices, near condos), it has the location. Yet it's practically a wasteland of souvenir shops with a few pubs hanging on for survival, at 9:00pm on a saturday is practically a ghost town. But it's the old cycle; people don't stay past 5:00pm because there's almost nothing to do and business owners won't take the risk in opening something new if there are no people. And their caution is justified, Sparks street is definitely not a "build it and they will come" place (just ask the owners of that cool looking jazz bar that didn't survive the winter).
ReplyDeleteThe reasons? A few include:
- NCC does little to no maintenance. (seriously, new paving stones, fresh coat of paint, get rid of the pigeon torture devices on buildings they don't work anyways, renovate the 60's front on the ground floor retail)
- Ottawa lacks a proper 5 to 7 vibe, no cafes, no lounges, just a couple pubs. This can be built but it takes serious advertising and a top quality product.
- No anchor retail.
Anyways I sincerely hope this project makes a big impact to help sparks reach its potential, a few good retail tenants and few more cafes or lounges and you could have a really dynamic place. There's a lot of potential for anyone that is willing to take the risk and has the ability to push it towards critical mass.
Best of luck to the builders.
Sparks Street always makes me cringe. So much potential!
ReplyDeleteI love the renderings of Re hotel and I think that is a great start...I hope anyway (i stayed at a Hotel Re! last year in Singapore. Any relation?).
As for Sparks...If an H&M, a Topshop and a Uniqlo could take advantage of the space, it would be THE place to shop and hang out in Ottawa. Add some unique cafes, some decent art, new cobblestone and it would be Ottawa's little piece of Europe.
Sigh...
Fortunately there seem to be a number of people working on implementing good changes here. I think/hope this will attract more sought after commerces
ReplyDeleteI don't believe there's a relation between re hotel in Ottawa and hotel Re hotel in Singapore but the one in Singapore look very neat! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete