Ottawa-based Jennings Real Estate has submitted an application for the first phase of a planned residential development at the site of a well-known meeting facility north of the airport.
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Ottawa-based Jennings Real Estate has submitted an application for the first phase of a planned residential development at the site of a well-known meeting facility north of the airport.
According to application documents submitted to the city, the company is looking to build a 14-storey apartment tower with 174 residential units. The project would also contain a two-storey underground parking garage.
The development would be located just off Riverside Drive at 3750 North Bowesville Rd., which is currently the site of the Blu Legacy Convention Centre.
The application is for the first of two residential towers. The company originally proposed the project to the city in 2023. At that time, Jennings filed an application to build two 14-storey towers with a total of 350 residential units and an underground parking lot for about 340 vehicles.
According to the most recent application, during the first phase of the project, the existing parking lot on the north side of the property will remain undeveloped. The site will later be developed with a second tower that mirrors the first, according to a servicing and stormwater management report prepared by Robinson Land Development.
The 1.66-acre property is on the southern edge of a residential neighbourhood, with the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club located directly south. Farther south across Hunt Club Road is a strip of land occupied by industrial and commercial uses, including a supermarket, restaurants and hotels, and the Ottawa International Airport.
When the proposal was first submitted, the events facility was known as the Mosaic Convention Centre. Before that, it was known as Tudor Hall, which has hosted meetings since the mid-1970s and was acquired by Jennings in 2022.
Jennings president Christian Jennings said in 2023 that the company wasn’t sure if the units would be rentals or condos. Noting that rising interest rates had driven up financing costs for real estate projects, he said it would likely be a “number of years” before shovels were in the ground.
“It’s a hard one to nail down,” Jennings said at the time. “Whether it’s rentals or condos, I think we’ll make our decision a little bit closer to the time when we’re ready to start building. We’re still at the very front end (of the process).”
Around the same time, the company was expanding its south-end portfolio, acquiring a pair of two-storey, 30,000-square-foot office buildings in a business park on Auriga Drive from Montreal-based PRO Real Estate Investment Trust.
“We like the area,” Jennings said in 2023. “It’s good access to downtown as well as the highways and major arteries of the city.
