Colonnade BridgePort has filed an application with the city seeking permission to subdivide the four-acre site at 2000 City Park Dr. into eight blocks that would feature five residential highrises ranging from 12 to 30 storeys, a park and a multi-use pathway.
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A major Ottawa developer is getting closer to breaking ground on a multi-tower development that would see more than 1,200 residential units built near the Blair LRT station.
Colonnade BridgePort has filed an application with the city seeking permission to subdivide the four-acre site at 2000 City Park Dr. into eight blocks that would feature five residential highrises ranging from 12 to 30 storeys, a park and a multi-use pathway.
The firm said the development, which is located about 450 metres west of Blair Station and the nearby Gloucester Centre mall, would include about 1,203 residential units when complete.
Colonnade BridgePort previously said its plan called for a trio of 30-storey towers on the southern portion of the property closest to Regional Road 174, with a proposed 16-storey highrise on the northeast corner of the site and a 12-storey building beside it to the west.
A small public park covering about a quarter of an acre would be located on the northwest side of the property next to an existing five-storey office building at 1900 City Park Dr. A public road running through the property would have two intersections off City Park Drive, and a pathway for pedestrians and cyclists would be built along the eastern edge of the site to connect it to Blair Station and the Gloucester Centre.
In previous planning documents, Colonnade BridgePort said the plan would add more than 800,000 square feet of new development to the property, which is already zoned for residential and commercial uses.
Earlier this year, city council approved Official Plan and zoning bylaw amendments to allow taller highrises at the site. Previous zoning rules limited building heights on most of the property to 20 storeys.
In a 2025 interview, Colonnade BridgePort senior vice-president of development Kelly Rhodenizer said the 16-storey tower would likely be first up on the construction docket, but added the firm and its partners were still mapping out how the project would proceed.
“This is a five- to 10- to 15-year planned buildout,” Rhodenizer told OBJ, adding the developer wanted to create a “mixed community” at the site.
Other aspects of the project, including the number of parking spaces, types of amenities and potential ground-floor commercial components, were yet to be determined, Rhodenizer said, adding tenants such as restaurants and retailers could be accommodated in future buildings.
Colonnade BridgePort officials were not immediately available to provide an update on the proposal Wednesday afternoon.
Colonnade BridgePort, the city’s largest privately owned commercial property manager, partnered with an unnamed institutional investor to buy the land and an adjacent five-storey office tower at 1900 City Park Dr. from QuadReal Property Group in March 2023.
The current proposal is a rejigged version of Colonnade BridgePort’s original concept for the site, which envisioned a “planned community” with more than a million square feet of residential space in five buildings of between 20 and 30 storeys that would be arranged around a central park.
After consultations with the city, the park was shifted farther southwest to mitigate shadow impacts from the surrounding towers, and the original road network was downsized.
Documents filed with the earlier proposal also included a long-term concept plan for 1900 City Park Dr. that called for the office building to be demolished and replaced with three highrises containing about 1,000 additional residential suites.
However, Colonnade BridgePort executives said in 2023 those plans were not set in stone, and the firm removed 1900 City Park Dr. from its updated development proposal.
In its revised master plan, the company said the office building is an “income-producing property with no immediate development plans anticipated,” adding it has “10-15 years in the life of the asset and potential for future dispositions.”
Colonnade BridgePort and its partner put the 93,200-square-foot building up for sale last year. Avison Young, which is marketing the property, still listed it on its website Wednesday afternoon.
