SOMEONE PLEASE HELP SAVE THIS BUILDING FROM THE NCC

I recently learned from an article on Open File Ottawa, that there's this beautiful modern building, formally known as the Canada and the World Pavilion, that the NCC has been neglecting for the past couple years. At approximately $4 million dollars over budget, this glass building overlooking the Ottawa Rideau Falls was constructed in 2001. According to an article on the the NCC Watch, the intent for the building was for it to be a forum where visitors can see and appreciate the global achievements of Canadians in diplomacy, peacekeeping, aid, science, technology, art and sport. Also, the then chairman said that the pavilion would fill a gap in tourists' experience of Ottawa. 

While I like the idea, I would say from the picture below of the "better days" of the pavilion, they clearly didn't know what they were doing, starting with the presentation of the building. Who would cover a piece of art with stretched fabric like this? 

 

But that's nothing compared to the "business plan". Apparently the operating budget was $500,000 per year, admission was free and the objective was to attract 120,000 visitors per year. Mind you, the pavilion was only opened during the summer. As a entrepreneur, I cringed when I read this. What did they expect would come out of such a plan?

So essentially, they opened their doors in 2001, and just when the number of visitors reached their target, they closed their doors. The building was left mostly vacant since. Makes sense?

Seven years later, the NCC is putting the building for rent. They are now looking for a special tenant.  According to an article in the Ottawa Citizen, the lease would cost upwards of $254,000 per year, not including operating costs and taxes. To make things even more difficult, the tenant, which I'm assuming would like to make a profit as all businesses do,  is expected to support a national purpose and be accessible to the public. Now, what kind of business would fit this restrictive criteria and at the same time preserve the architecture ? 

I thought long and hard about it, and I think I came up with a good solution. It seems like most people like the idea of a museum. In fact I think the original idea of celebrating Canada's contribution is a good one, just poorly executed. What I would suggest is to open our very own branch of Madame Tussauds museum, featuring Canadian celebrities? The first one in Canada! 

 I'm assuming such a museum is successful by the simple fact that this model has been repeated in several cities around the world. There are currently 4 in the US, 5 in Europe, 3 in Asia and 1 in Australia.  There are a lot of successful canadians who already have their wax figures in the United States, such as Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, Jim Carrey and William Shatner. Why not have the first Canadian version one in Ottawa?

How can we make it fit NCC's criteria? We focus only on Canadians and add more wax figures from our large pool of Canadian celebrities. Seriously, there's a lot to choose from.  Off the top of my head I can think of Keanu Reeves, Pamela Anderson, Keifer Sutherland, Drake, Deadmau5, Mike Myers, Rachel McAdams, Kardinal Offishall, Sandra Oh, Michael J Fox, Donald Sutherland, Seth Rogan, Russel Peters, etc. It's not that hard! We could also add our own Prime ministers to the list. What a fun and effective way to fill a gap in tourists' experience of Ottawa both for locals and tourists from around the world!

Now I'm considering looking for someone or a group of people to make this happen. So if you, or anyone you know fits the bill, have them contact me. If there's a way to take the NCC out of this deal completely, it's even better. We can't let the NCC ruin yet another gem in the city. In fact, you can find a long list of failures on the NCC Watch website.


The building has three levels and is built into a cliff facing the Ottawa River. It features two floors of open spaces with windows on three sides overlooking the river and a lower level built into the cliff. I cringe when I see so much potential wasted. Hard earned taxpayers money going to waste. This is unacceptable.

I even put together an initial conservative proposal. This is based on the data I was able to find so far. The MoOt plan is this : 

1. Keep it open year round: There's no reason I can think of that would justify closing a museum in the winter. Since NCC was able to bring it 125,000 visitors while opened only in the summer. We could conservatively expect to double the number of visitors if we keep the place open year-round 
2. Make it profitable: First, there should be an admission fee, say on average $30,00 per person. This should bring in minimum $7.2 million dollars a year. Second, there should be things visitors could purchase as a souvenir such as a wax molding of your hand (like it Las Vegas) and  merchandises. This should significantly increase revenues. 
3. Stay current and interesting : Use a clever marketing campaign to attract visitors, make the museum interactive and stay up to date with technologies. Add value to the visits with events such as appearances from celebrities, maybe even presentation sessions. Add new wax figures on a regular basis as well. It takes from six months to a year to complete a figure at a cost of $150,000 - $250,000. It looks feasible to me. 

From what I've seen in the four years I've been living in this city, is that if you want to make things happen in Ottawa, you have to do it yourself. I'm on board, but I can't do this alone. So if I can find the proper serious partners to make this happen, I will. So please spread the word. The deadline for proposals is April 30, 2012. 

Source : KatLevPhoto | Michael Afar | Shane Zurbrigg | NCC Watch | Wikipedia | Open File Ottawa | NCC Watch | Ottawa Citizen

BANK STREET NEEDS A LŌCALE STORE

Last year, Blockbuster Video closed all its stores in Ottawa, leaving a lot empty retails spaces up for grabs. A couple weeks ago, Open File asked "What should replace Ottawa's Old Blockbusters?". If it was up to me,  I would arrange to bring in the LŌCALE store in the retail space located on Bank St. near Somerset. Not only would the store flourish in this location, but it would be a major contributor to massively improve the area. 

What is LŌCALE?

Lōcale is a footwear & accessories boutique-style concept store that celebrates art, fashion & community. This relatively new concept if the brain-child of Aldo Group, an internationally successful Canadian company that has been in business since 1972. They now own over 1160 stores all over the world. 

Why a shoe store?

We need one. There are no trendy shoe stores in this area of the city, despite the increasing number of potential clients in the area (i.e. office workers, condo and home owners and as well as renters). Think about the additional number of people that are now living in the area because of newly-built and soon-to-be-built condo buildings such as Mondrian, Hudson Park I & II, Central I, II & III, Gotham, etc. That's a lot of people!

Second, a shoe store is ideal because it suits the building and its location. It's very difficult and inconvenient to find parking in this area of town, so the majority of the customers would be pedestrians and people using public transportation. Consequently, a smart business move would be to sell something that can easily be carried by hand. Selling big items like mattresses for example, would be asking for trouble. Most likely, it wouldn't as profitable or viable because it's too much trouble for the customer. If you want to sell, you have to make it easy and enjoyable for clients to buy. That's why  shoes are ideal. It's easy and fun to stop by and shop for shoes during a lunch break or even before taking the bus back home outside the city. Who doesn't like a little shopping therapy from time to time?

Lastly, I would recommend a shoe store because everybody needs and wears shoes. So it wouldn't be hard sell, especially for women. And I can tell you, as a woman living in Ottawa, there is definitely a need for a stylish shoe store in this area. In other words, this could be the opportunity of a lifetime.

That being said, to be successful in this business, you need to know how to do it and you need to know what you're doing, which brings us the reason why I think Lōcale is the perfect match.

Why LŌCALE? 
Lōcale is exactly what Centertown / Bank Street needs : A large brand with staying power that has style, a great variety of stylish products and the capability to involves the community. The concept of the store is to create an engaging cultural shopping experience by curating some great art from local artists. The image below of on of their Montreal locations is a perfect example of community involvement. In this case, local artists collaborated in creating a design for the store chalk board display.

The intention is that the new Lōcale stores are places that will inspire visitors to come and see what is happening, based on the activity, the creativity, and the multidimensional context of the experience within. The design statement says that brand collateral has been produced through partnerships with artists and galleries, allowing synergies between the art world and the brand. These partnerships allow Lōcale to leverage creativity in unique ways, and create cyclical messages that are fresh and introduce elements of contemporary art culture. How awesome is that?



Also, this would be a great way to jump start the beautification of Bank St and serve as a benchmark to many others stores in the area. Let's face it, most of the stores are not up to par when it comes to fashion ( a notable exception is Stroked Ego). The look of the store is a concept by Pompei A. D. who took care of all aspects of the Lōcale brand including the name, logo, brand aesthetic, packaging, website, signage and store design. They did an excellent job.

 

There's a lot of ugly, barely hanging in there shops in that area. What's needed I think is a good anchor shop that is ideal for foot traffic and make this a more inviting place for people. Bank Street could be to  Ottawa what Ste-Catherine Street is to Montreal : a lively, fun and inspiring shopping street.

Source : Retail Design Blog | Pompei A. D. | Momunit | 

THE NEW LANSDOWNE : PROBLEM SOLVING - PART 1

Although the 3D flyby animation of the future Lansdowne was interesting, I didn't find it particularly informative. By the end of the video, I still had many unanswered questions: "How is this going to work?", "Is this the best use of space?", "What about traffic?", etc. So I did a bit of research and found a couple preliminary plans and documents with a bit more information.

Let's just say there's room for improvement. The design for the New Lansdowne may not be the most innovative or inspiring design I've seen, but  that doesn't mean it will be a total flop. It just needs some serious tweaking to become a gem in the city. So let's take a closer look at the proposed layout for the new Lansdowne.

Lansdowne Park is currently an eyesore. It hasn't been properly maintained over the years and it shows (even its website!). One major issue with the current site is that it's essentially a huge grey asphalt desert, sprinkled with a couple tired buildings, devoid of any sorts of greenery or beauty. In other words, it's depressing and ugly. 

To solve this problem, the designers created 17 areas, identified in the picture above. When we compared it to the current layout , we can see that some of the asphalt areas will be replaced with greenery and the rest with buildings. Keep in mind that the light green areas shown above are still going to be roads.

So if you highlight them in red, you get a better idea of what the place will look like below.



It looks like the designers are proposing stone covered streets for a large portion of the site : a really really bad idea in Ottawa. It might work in other cities but not in Ottawa because this type of road needs a lot of proper maintenance and from what I've seen from the city's history of road maintenance, this is just asking for trouble. It's not something that the city is currently capable of handling properly. Just look at Sparks Street. Remember my post from 2009? It still has not be repaired, almost three years later. And this is only a pedestrian Street. Imagine how much worst it would be for a road after a year of multiple cars, trucks and buses. It wouldn't take too long before it's patched up with ugly asphalt above the stone covered road just like on Sparks street. It's a waste of money.




So why not opt for something better? Something that requires little to no maintenance, that can handle heavy traffic, snow removal trucks and salt, and that can relatively easily and inexpensively be repaired or replaced? What can be done instead without resorting to the typical grey asphalt road? Colored asphalt? It's simple and it works! It's most likely less expensive than stone covered roads, easier to maintain and easier to repair. It could even be green to go with the theme. Can someone pass this one to the design team?

Photos : City of Ottawa | Go Green | Ocean Power

A METRO PROPOSAL FOR OTTAWA - PART 2

 

This is how I picture the first metro map in Ottawa. Imagine how pleasant it would be to go see a concert at the Scotia Bank Place from your home in Orleans without having to drive in traffic, or how enjoyable it would be to leave your home in Kanata in the winter for a night out in the market without having to find parking. 

A proper metro system should connect all the universities and colleges to downtown as well as important locations such as the Scotia Bank Place, the airport, the train station and the Casino. Having an underground metro system in Ottawa would greatly increase the mobility of people and connectivity between places. It would most likely boost the economy as well, since it would be easier, faster and cheaper for people to move around the city without needing a car.

If I was to design a metro map for Ottawa, I would start with 7 lines. Here's what I envision :

The Red Line

There would be a main line going from Kanata to Orleans. This would greatly alleviate the traffic on the 417 and allow the many people who live in the suburbs and work downtown to commute a lot faster and easier. (No more cursing at the bus driver who didn't stop for you). This line would connect the Scotia Bank Place, the Kanata Centrum, the Bayshore Mall, Tunney's Pasture, the University of Ottawa, La Cite Collegiale, Place d'Orleans Mall and the Shenkman Art Centre. The Red Line would also be connected to five other lines running North-South.


The Orange Line
 
The Orange Line would run parallel to the red line but a little more to the North. It would connect the War Museum, Spark Street Mall (a nicer one), the Parliament, the Rideau Center and Beechwood. The Orange Line would also be connected to three other lines running North-South.

The Purple Line

The purple line would go from Bells Corner, pass through IKEA, Algonquin College, Carleton University, Spark Street all the way to the Casino in Gatineau : very practical for people living in Gatineau and working in Ottawa. 

The Yellow Line

The Yellow Line would be the main North-South line, connecting the airport to downtown and a portion of Gatineau as well. This would considerably alleviate traffic specially considering the fact that there's only one main road from downtown to the new CE Centre. This line would run along Bank Street and would would most likely boost the businesses in the area and help with traffic along Lansdowne.

The Teal Line

The Teal line would connect the Byward Market to the metro system as well as St-Paul University. It could eventually expand further south to include areas such as Greenboro and Leitrim. 

The Blue Line

The main purpose of the Blue Line would be to connect the train station to the subway system. This line could also be expanded depending on the need for it.

The Green Line

The Green line would mostly run along St-Laurent, giving better access to a lot of the retailers along the street, including the St-Laurent Mall and also connect tourist attractions such as the RCMP musical ride and the Ottawa Science Museum. 

So there you have it! Metro's have been around since 1863 (in London). There are now over 183 metros around the world. The largest one (423 km) is in Shanghai (China) and the smallest one (1.8 km) is in Haifa (Israel). However the one with the most station is in New York (468 stations, 368 km)

The current proposed metro system for Ottawa (76 stations, 63 km) would be comparable to the one in Montreal  built in 1966 (73 stations, 69 km). Given that we're in the 21st century however, the system would have to be a lot more technologically advanced. 

Reference : World Metro Database 

A METRO PROPOSAL FOR OTTAWA - PART 1

A modern city needs a proper transportation system and Ottawa does not have it yet. Although the Ottawa Light Rails project is a step in the right direction, I don't believe the current proposed design will solve many of the issues we're currently facing in the city.  So I'm proposing a better solution : Ottawa Metro, a larger underground subway system.

The main "issue" with the streets downtown Ottawa is that most are very narrow. They were not built for buses, on top of cars, on top of bicycles, on top of pedestrians. The population is increasing but the available space has not changed. It just gets more crowded. And with the green belt, we can't really expand either.

There has been various attempts to "solve" the problem,  such as adding more OC Transpo buses on the roads, adding a bike lane on Laurier, widening streets on Kent, narrowing the street on Bank, etc. These are all Band-Aid solutions that don't really address the issue: There isn't enough space. Therefore pleasing one group is always going to be at the expense of another. Let's take a closer look at the "solutions".

1. Widening the roads

One of the current "solutions" has been to widen the roads like Kent Street (previously mentioned on Urbsite) so that more cars could come to the city. But widening the roads, eliminates the green space and eventually the sidewalks. Most buildings lose their curb appeal, it becomes less inviting or safe to walk there and the city ends up becoming uglier. Not to mention that it increases pollution. So that's not the right solution.

2. Adding more OC Transpo buses

Adding more buses doesn't do much to improve the situation either. Although buses help reduce the amount of cars in the city, they come with their share of issues. It might have worked at first but we now have ridiculous conga lines of buses on streets like Wellington St. and Albert St. during rush hours. More often then none, it's now faster to walk (and sometime's drive) which defeats their purpose in the first place. Also, on small two-way streets like Bank St., where there is only one lane in each direction, the buses become the cause of much of the traffic during rush hour as well. They have to stop often and cars or trucks can't pass around them. Furthermore most buses also pollute. They are also the subject of many complaints (ex. Public Transit in Ottawa blog) about not being there on time, not showing up at all or bus drivers not picking up people. So that's not the right solution either. 

3. Adding more bike lanes 

Adding more bike lanes may sound like a good idea at first, but since they just end up taking space where there already isn't enough, this ends up making things worst. The number of limited parking spaces and stopping zones is reduced and we found ourselves in situations where delivery trucks, for example, have to block the bike lanes and/or traffic. It's just a mess.

And sharing the road with cyclists is even worse! (Who thought of that one?) The average speed of a cyclist is 15 to 30 km/h. The average speed in the city is 30 to 60 km/hr. Most cyclists will never go as fast as a car or a bus for a long period of time. So they more often end up slowing down traffic when they share the road in area where traffic should go faster. So definitely not the right solution, not to mention that it's dangerous to cyclists.

4. Adding an underground metro system

The best solution would be to add a modern metro system underground. This is the only solution where we actually create more space to accommodate for the population increase instead of moving things around hoping that we'll find more space. This would release a good amount of the pressure above ground. With a proper metro system in place, there would be less cars, less busses and less bicycles on the road, which in turn would make more space for more trees, benches, patios in front of restaurants. The city would then be a much nicer place to live in. This would make the city more inviting to both locals and tourists alike. We would even be able to turn a couple more streets into pedestrian streets. How nice would that be? 

Photo : via Reddit

What if Ottawa was a business ?

Over the past three years that I’ve been living in Ottawa, I witnessed some successful and not so successful developments in the city, a lot of stagnation as well as a couple unfortunate declines. And although the nation’s capital has a couple good things going for it, I believe it is still (very much so) a diamond in the rough. It could be so much better if only more people were willing to put the required effort and work allowing it to flourish. 

This got me thinking : What if the city of Ottawa was run like a business? Imagine it was your business. How would you manage it? What would you change? What would you keep? How would you make it more competitive on the international level? What would be the its brand or signature product(s)? What would make Ottawa a better city for its citizens and its tourists? 

I’ve been a big fan of shows like Bar Rescue where business owners of poorly performing establishments are offered the services of an expert consultant and his team to turn their fortune around. After they evaluate the business, significant changes are implemented in order to turn it into a more profitable and successful establishment. I often feel like Ottawa could benefit from something like this, and of course I’ve got some ideas I’d like to share with you. So stay tuned for City Rescue - MOOT Edition. I’m also looking forward to read your thoughts on this.

Photos : MOOT | City of Ottawa