This article was updated from the print version with the City Council decision of April 17 to proceed with The Bible House heritage designation.
Robert Smythe
Ottawa’s office building to residential conversions continue to bubble away, albeit at a low simmer.
It’s time to update with a look at the most recent example: District Realty’s proposal to convert an 11-storey grey brick office tower at Elgin and Lisgar Streets, formerly known as the “EL-GAR” (get it?) Building but now simply called 200 Elgin.
The BUZZ has visited this trend frequently, with a summary of the Canadian Urban Institute’s CMHC-sponsored study on the conversion potential across Canada; the City of Ottawa’s tepid fee-and-red-tape reduction strategy for inducing this type of development; and reports on conversion projects at 473 Albert Street (now complete), 360 Laurier Avenue West (just now underway), and 130 Slater Street and 230 Queen Street (both still in the planning phase).
District Realty is a local company with a portfolio of residential and commercial properties. This is not their first office-to-res conversion at the same location. Some years ago, they undertook a 42-unit, 30,000-square-foot project at 169 Lisgar Street, an adjoining wing of the older building, creating bachelor, one-, and two-bedroom suites. This 1990s addition had also included a parking garage and a small condo tower around the corner at 18 Nepean Street.
According to real estate consultants quoted in an Ottawa Business Journal article of April 3, conversion of 200 Elgin will take 140,000 square feet of class C office space out of the central area’s stock. It’s an undistinguished but longstanding block that was designed by architect Joseph Liff and first occupied in 1966.
The building fulfills the small footprint, narrow punched windows in solid walls condition that is apparently the Goldilocks recipe for proceeding with these transformations.
170 Metcalfe: small but perfectly formed apartments
Their 169 Lisgar Street job was followed up by District Realty’s second office-to-residential conversion, an eight-storey building nearby at 170 Metcalfe Street dating from 1964-65, and last occupied by the Canadian Red Cross Society. Of more than passing interest is the fact that it was one of fabled William Teron’s earliest commercial essays into downtown Ottawa development.
I toured the model suites in this newly minted Metcalfe Street apartment house a few years ago on one of its open house days. The 61 apartments could only be described as small but perfectly formed: a compact, immaculately finished 400 square feet. It then tipped the rental scales at $2K per month. Parking was not included and just a handful of parking spaces were available.
This confirms the generally held perception that this approach can be complicated and spendy, and that it will never solve the need for more affordable housing, nor deliver new units in the numbers required. But it has its supporters and occupies a niche that has many collateral benefits.
District Realty’s project manager said that they had learned a lot about how to perform these conversions and what tenants want since 169 Lisgar Street. Practice makes perfect, and while each office-to-res conversion has unique challenges, developers should be able to refine the process and find some efficiencies with each successive project.
Heritage Designation of the Bible House
The Bible House is a quaint, two-storey building on Lisgar just east of Bank, faintly “Collegiate Gothic” in style. It was built in 1922 for The Bible Society, an organization whose mission was to spread the word through the worldwide dissemination of that book.
On January 26, the City of Ottawa published its “Notice of Intention to Designate” 315 Lisgar Street as a significant building of historic, architectural, and community importance. Up until now, this noteworthy little structure had no heritage protection whatsoever because it fell just outside the boundaries of the Centretown and Bank Street Heritage Conservation Districts. Nor was it listed on Ottawa’s Heritage Register.
The property owner was served with a written notice the same day. Under the provisions of the Ontario Heritage Act, the building’s owner, the Anglican Church of the Messiah, had 30 days to file its objection. They did so, citing the impact of the designation on the building’s property value and the financial implications of any such categorization.
City Council had to decide whether to withdraw its intention to designate, or to proceed with the whole legal process. It had until May 25 to decide.
At its meeting of April 9, the city’s Built Heritage Committee considered the matter. It determined that the rationale for a heritage designation was sufficiently strong, and that any financial hardship could be countered by the city’s heritage grants program which provides up to $25,000 in matched funds every two years.
The committee therefore recommended that council proceed with the designation process under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act.
City Council voted in favour of this recommendation on April 17.