Quote:
Originally Posted by Dado
As for other sites, JCL mentioned the old Ottawa Technical High School site, which kind of appeals to me since it's about the same size as the Lyon-Albert-Bay-Slater block.
|
It also already has a big auditorium, in the "heritage"* part of the building. According to the Escarpment Plan, the city is considering keeping the Aud if/when the site is developed, and at the same time they (another branch) also wanted to put a new auditorium accross the street in the new Central Library plan. This seemed kinda redundant to me, not to forget that there are also 2 other auditoriums within a few blocks at Library and Archives and the Bronson Centre! Anyway, it would make sense from an efficiency standpoint to integrate the new library with the old Ottawa Tech auditorium, and there might be other facilities in the old high school that could be re-purposed as well. The only drawback I see to this idea is that the auditorium is accross the street from the sports fields (som of which are to be preserved as greenspace in the Escarpment Plan), so it couldn't open onto a plaza on those fields, and they'd have to keep/renew/replace the skywalk accross Slater that connects the two ugly mod additions of the old school.
* I don't know if it has actual heritage designation but it is the oldest and most interesting part of the building architecturally.