As the push to build housing near the Confederation LRT Line ramps up, the owner of a prominent office and commercial complex at the corner of Scott Street and Holland Avenue is the latest developer to propose a residential tower on the east-west transit corridor.
In documents recently filed at City Hall, LaSalle Investment Management says it wants to build a 29-storey 300,000-square-foot highrise with 337 rental units and ground-level commercial space on the southeast corner of the Holland Cross complex, which is managed by Ottawa-based Colonnade Bridgeport.
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Built in the 1980s, Holland Cross is currently home to two eight-storey office buildings. LaSalle filed plans in 2014 to build an additional 12-storey, 180,000-square-foot office building at the site, but “changing market conditions” led the firm to abandon the project, according to the latest planning documents.
Now, the builder says it’s ready to jump on the residential bandwagon at the Holland Cross site, which is located about 250 metres from the Tunney’s Pasture LRT station. At the nearby Tunney’s Pasture campus, the federal government is looking at adding millions of square feet of office space as part of its plan to redevelop the property.
“The provision of a primarily residential use building on a large underutilized property consisting of office and commercial type land uses achieves the mixed-use objectives for this major node along the city’s Confederation LRT line,” the documents say.
“Tunney’s Pasture is also the location of a major government employment campus and is bound to the north by a robust network of multi-use pathways and open space, all of which provides further justification for the introduction of nearby high-density residential use.”
The existing development includes two levels of underground parking with spaces for about 780 vehicles. LaSalle is proposing 33 additional underground parking spots for visitors, along with parking for 169 bicycles.
The site is currently zoned for buildings up to 18 storeys, meaning council must approve an amendment for the plan to proceed.
Scott Street has become a hotbed of planned transit-oriented development over the past few years as builders look to cash in on growing demand for rental housing near light-rail stations.
A few kilometres west of Holland Avenue between Winona Avenue and Churchill Avenue, for example, Azure Urban Developments is planning a 25-storey mixed-use highrise with 264 residential units.
Meanwhile, just east of Azure’s site, Colonnade Bridgeport is partnering with Morley Hoppner on a proposal that would see the Granite Curling Club shifted to a nearby lot and a mixed-use highrise built in its place. Another builder, Surface Developments, has filed plans to build a 30-storey mixed-use tower just a few metres farther east on Scott Street that would contain more than 350 apartment units.
