A 27-storey development is being proposed for Metcalfe Street, but it would require amendments to both an official plan and a major zoning bylaw.
The high-rise would intensify a site now home to the six-storey, yellow-brick Medical Arts Building, at Metcalfe and Nepean streets. Most of the existing heritage building, 80 per cent of it, would be maintained and integrated into the development, according to plans filed to the city by Toth Equity Ltd.
Both the Metcalfe and Nepean street facades would be kept and worked into the new design, including a six-storey podium and 21-storey tower. The exact uses for the building, at 180 Metcalfe St., haven’t been determined.
But Toth wants to combine at-grade retail with residential, office or hotel uses, or some sort of combination. A concept plan has 206 residential units and 140 hotel suites.
“Overall, the proposed development will intensify a site located at the edge of an established community in Ottawa’s central core,” the planning rationale says. “A unique and innovative design coupled with an ideal location make this site appropriate for the proposed development.”
But the developer would first have to win approval from the city’s planning committee and council. Zoning for the site would need to be amended, including to allow for the height of 87 metres, where 37 metres is the current limit, and to add hotel, office and retail as permitted uses.
An official plan amendment would also be required to allow an office and hotel as permitted uses, to permit non-residential uses on any floor and for non-residential uses to exceed 50 per cent of the building’s gross floor area.
