Recovery and Growth

Before the pandemic, the core of the Capital (the metropolitan downtown core, as the municipalities now jointly call it) had been making major strides. Notwithstanding the technical problems experienced by the O-Train, having an underground rapid transit line is a major mobility improvement for the downtown. Subway service into downtown is about to reach a much larger population with Stage 2 expansions to the O-Train network. This puts us in the league of major cities when it comes to transit.

Intensification efforts on both sides of the river have yielded real results: there has been a significant increase in population in downtown Ottawa, which is now home to over 112,000 residents (17% more than fifteen years ago). Downtown Ottawa had the strongest population growth rate in the city in 2021, according to the City’s 2021 Annual Development Report. Projects large and small across all downtown neighbourhoods testify to the ongoing appetite for residential opportunities at the heart of the city. As for downtown Gatineau, it is home to more than 12,000 residents, a number which is also on the rise thanks to landmark projects like Zibi and several new residential developments along key streets like Montcalm and Laurier and Maisonneuve and Des Allumettières boulevards.

This means that the National Capital Region has a downtown with a population of about 125,000 residents, before we count jobs. Prior to the pandemic, an estimated 120,000 jobs were located in the core area. Although we don’t have statistics for how many of those jobs were held by downtown residents, it’s fair to say that there was a significant influx of people into the downtown core every weekday, swelling its daytime population to north of 200,000 people.

What these numbers mean is that Ottawa-Gatineau’s core area is one of the most populous downtowns in Canada, just in terms of residents. However, it’s not among the densest. According to Statistics Canada data from 2021, Ottawa’s downtown has a density of 6,847 people per square kilometre, just over a third of downtown Vancouver’s density (18,837) and less than half of downtown Toronto’s (16,608), but actually not far from downtown Montreal’s (8,367).

Pre-pandemic, downtown was starting to pick up a real buzz with the constant flow of foot traffic on major streets like Rideau, Bank and Elgin, new restaurants, music and culture venues always busy, major events like La Machine which brought hundreds of thousands to the streets, and otherwise, always a festival, an event, something every week and weekend for everyone. The ingredients were present for the repositioning of our downtown as a genuine big-city downtown, which is a desirable and normal thing to aspire to with the growth of our population. The capital of a G-7 country should have a downtown that looks and feels like it’s a big city: vibrant, busy, dynamic, always active. That’s what Canadians want in their capital city, too, as we heard during the consultations on the Plan for Canada’s Capital, 2017–2067.

But post-pandemic, our downtown is struggling to regain that level of activity. And it should not be acceptable to anyone, whether they live here or elsewhere in Canada, that the downtown core of the nation’s capital is so quiet. How do we get back to where we left off, and keep building from there?

Because the employment situation is as fluid as it is in a post-pandemic world of hybrid work models, the daytime tide will take time to recover; however, we should aspire to bring a lot of it back. If the federal office footprint is reduced, as is currently expected, there will be opportunities to re-use some office buildings for new office users. The high-tech sector would be a welcome player in the core area, with a younger workforce that would be keener to live and go out downtown. There need to be more sectors of our economy present in the downtown core on both sides of the river.

The idea of converting office buildings to residential ones is not a bad one, but, depending on the building, not always easy or possible. Besides, the potential effect on property tax revenue to the city treasury from such conversions has to be analyzed and understood, and this is not a trivial matter.

The federal government, through the NCC, was instrumental in bringing about major changes to both downtowns over the years. While there were clear benefits from some of those changes, the passage of time also allows us to see that there are things that would be done very differently, or not at all, if seen through today’s lens. The demolitions of LeBreton Flats and old downtown Hull should be acknowledged as falling into that category. As urban planners today, we should seek to help achieve redress for the cities that host the capital.

The NCC’s new Core Area Sector Plan presents unique opportunities to look at ways to achieve recovery for the downtown. It should be seen as a matter of national interest to have a populous downtown, and therefore, the provision of housing opportunities will be a major theme. The downtown core itself is poised to grow geographically to reflect the growing population of the National Capital Region. LeBreton Flats represents an opportunity to double the size of Ottawa’s downtown and weave it into neighbourhoods like the future Bayview district, Little Italy and Mechanicsville. Zibi is unique to Canada in being a heritage adaptive re-use project that sets the stage for providing place identity and cultural visibility to the host Algonquin Nation, while knitting an urban fabric across a river, on islands. On the Gatineau side, short- to long-term opportunities exist to repopulate the centre-ville on lands along the Ruisseau de la Brasserie (Brewery Creek) and the Kruger paper mill. The opportunity exists as well to look at opportunities for urban fabric repair, which a future article will address in more detail.

The future of our downtown, if we want it to be a beacon of vibrancy, an economic engine, a global tourist and cultural destination and a great place to live, involves a higher resident population and a greater mix of uses, anticipating changes in the nature and patterns of office work, but always making sure that downtown remains a place that “works” and not just a place that “plays” (and it definitely can stand to “play” more).

This shift in thinking is a critical step toward removing barriers to, and creating conditions favourable for, economic and cultural development and diversification.