LeBreton Flats Redevelopment: Recognizing the Ottawa River & the Future of the Nation's Capital

I moved to the Ottawa area a little more than a year ago. I grew up here, leaving the city as a teenager. I tell people that I have moved “to” not “back to” Ottawa simply because, after a nearly 30 years’ absence, I spent very little of my adult life in the Nation’s Capital. The Ottawa I knew as a teenager isn’t representative of what exists today. And besides, growing up in a verdant suburb attached to an orphaned segment of its famous greenbelt certainly didn’t afford me the opportunity to appreciate the diversity of the city’s various neighbourhoods. As an architect, urban designer and former magazine editor, I have enjoyed many opportunities to visit Ottawa at various points in my career, such as when I was a member of the City’s Urban Design Review Panel. From an urban planning perspective, Ottawa fascinates me: Managing the “imageability” of a city strongly connected to its natural environment is a challenge, notwithstanding the need to address its various ceremonial routes and institutions required of a national capital.

I have taken on the role of an observer of my hometown over the past few months, unsure of whether or not to consider myself an outsider. Today, I feel differently about my status as I attended the highly anticipated launch of the National Capital Commission’s public consultation process and the unveiling of two interesting but competing proposals for Lebreton Flats, a vast and open site that once contained a vibrant community of residential, commercial and industrial activity. The area was demolished wholesale in the 1960s during the North American period of urban renewal which saw similar land expropriation and destruction of largely lower-class communities across Canada and the United States. Lebreton Flats was too poor, dirty and close to Parliament Hill and therefore had to go. Except for the Canadian War Museum and a condominium project, very little has been rebuilt. The land has largely remained empty and the National Capital Commission is finally the verge of achieving its redevelopment goals--either by selling off or partnering with the private sector nearly 10 hectares of land, with an option for an additional 12 hectares.

The competing schemes for Lebreton Flats illustrate an enormous amount of work, and in the case of one of the proponents, a large assembly of frivolous renderings and collection of irrelevant precedents. Just like any large, multi-phase urban redevelopment project, both teams required an extensive list of consultants and business partners, with the ability to entice even more money to the table. The two schemes--Canadensis and Illumination LeBreton--greatly differ in their ability to acknowledge and celebrate Ottawa’s distinct geography, heritage, neighbourhoods and economy. Canadensis fails to recognize the intricacies of these significant issues while Illumination LeBreton ably defines all of them.

Canadensis is led by Devcore Canderel DLS Group and its design is championed by Ottawa architect Ritchard Brisbin. It is packed with program--just about any kind of program imaginable. Conceived as a linear park, the scheme contains a stadium, an aquarium, museums, various attractions, shops, housing for seniors, housing for the wealthy, and a pledge of affordable housing for families. It has 8 of Canada’s 11 climate regions represented in its landscape architecture but the overall landscape is difficult to define other than the fact that it is supposed to be “of Canada.” It isn’t a question of what Canadensis includes, but what its many consultants decided to omit. It’s ambitious but out of step with Ottawa’s ability to absorb all this program. Moreover, it seems exclusive, expensive, and quite simply unrealistic. A glorified Canadiana theme park with nary a coherent theme or design intention in sight. The project lacks editorial craftsmanship in its design. Nevertheless, it certainly refers to a multitude of successful precedents to a degree that is almost duplicitous. It was Brisbin himself who referred to his scheme as a "mash-up" of the Tuileries Garden in Paris, Highline Park in New York City and Millennium Park in Chicago. A great summary to what was likely a year of hard work that led to what ultimately appears to be a unilaterally configured city for the amazement of many but the financial profit and appreciation of very few. So few in fact that it seems unlikely that the necessary financial partners will come to the table, especially the Ottawa Senators.

By contrast, Illumination LeBreton is led by the Ottawa Senators, and its compelling design is led by Ottawa architect Barry Hobin and Montreal architect Renée Daoust. The scheme contains a credible series of moments identifying a number of heritage and landscape features on the site that have largely been forgotten to most Ottawans--the features are notably the Ottawa River and a nearby aqueduct. Furthermore, the scheme is quite explicit in its ability to stitch itself back into the evolving Centretown urban fabric to the south. It’s five distinct neighbourhoods—Pimisi, Bayview, Quartier LeBreton, Asticou, and Aqueduct—each have their own identity with two of them connecting to a future light-rail system. Using the heritage value of an old aqueduct, a number of activities will both animate the aqueduct and be animated by it. The new light rail will be encapsulated under a proposed east-west arterial to form the basis of a tiered landscape overlooking the Ottawa River. Daoust is one of the best urban designers currently working in Canada. Her work includes projects and planning for the Quartier International and Secteur Place des Arts in Montreal, along with the sublime Promenade Samuel-de-Champlain in Quebec City are inspirational urban projects. Ottawa architect Barry Hobin--himself an established and thoughtful practitioner--will serve as the team’s local coordinator for a diverse architect team comprised of Toronto’s KPMB Architects, Copenhagen’s Schmidt Hammer Lassen, and the San Francisco office of Perkins+Will. The bid is led by Senators Sports and Entertainment and Trinity Developments, but contains a multitude of partners, including real estate developers Windmill, Brigil and Mattamy Homes, all of whom have a significant presence in the city. What completely surprised was how little the scheme’s success relies upon the presence of an NHL hockey arena. There are so many significant factors contributing to the project that a new home for the Ottawa Senators is only one aspect, but not the defining aspect of Illumination LeBreton.

What has always struck me about Ottawa is just how much the city has avoided its rivers. So much attention has been given to the Rideau Canal but the region’s important rivers--the Rideau, the Ottawa, and the Gatineau are largely ignored from a planning perspective. There are many reasons for this: the legacies of postwar planning efforts, the fact that that the Ottawa (or Outaouais) divides two provinces, and the present of the federal government. Illumination LeBreton clearly speaks to this issue. This is what ultimately defines its magic as a scheme that brings the Ottawa River to the city and brings the city to its river once and for all.

For more information on LeBreton Flats