{"id":498777,"date":"2026-02-25T15:15:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/498777\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T15:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:15:12","slug":"why-a-parking-garage-is-key-to-the-cost-and-timing-of-the-byward-market-reset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/498777\/","title":{"rendered":"Why a parking garage is key to the cost and timing of the ByWard Market ‘reset’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The estimated cost of the latest plan for the ByWard Market has gone up by nearly $70 million since an earlier and largely unrealized version of the redevelopment scheme was approved by city council in 2021.<\/p>\n

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe gave a preview of the new plan last week<\/a> in what he called a “brief primer,” but that seven-page handout, as well as Sutcliffe’s accompanying speech to Ottawa’s business community, was short on new details. <\/p>\n

By contrast, the City of Ottawa staff report that dropped online the next day<\/a> shed much more light on the city’s hopes, potential timelines, and the fresh price tag for what’s hoped to inject new life into the historic district troubled by what it calls “a convergence of challenges.” <\/p>\n

In particular, the city’s update drives home how the deteriorating state of the 50-year-old mixed-use parking garage at 70 Clarence St. is a major factor shaping the city’s approach to the market’s redevelopment. <\/p>\n

\"ParkingThe Clarence Street parking garage dates back to 1975, making it the oldest of the parking garages the city owns. (Francis Ferland\/CBC)’Philanthropic contributions’<\/p>\n

When city council gave its market plan blessing five years ago<\/a>, the total cost was $129 million. <\/p>\n

Key projects to improve the state of the market included:<\/p>\n

Reimagining the 55 ByWard Market Square building as a modern, food-focused hub.Turning York Street east of Sussex Drive into a people- and event-friendly plaza. Replacing the 70 Clarence parking garage with a new “destination” building that includes public space. <\/p>\n

Those remain pillars of the city’s plan. <\/p>\n

The new plan now also contemplates the cost of a potential “subterranean parking facility” under 70 Clarence, even as the city admits that the revenue potential from underground parking would be eclipsed by its capital and lifecycle costs and make it the new plan’s “largest financial pressure point.”<\/p>\n

In total, the Market Square, York Street and 70 Clarence projects, including underground parking, would cost $197 million, according to preliminary estimates. <\/p>\n

\"FundingA previous plan was estimated to cost $129 million. The $197-million updated estimate is more than 50 per cent more expensive. (City of Ottawa)<\/p>\n

Omitting underground parking would shrink the total capital cost by $51 million, which would make up for most of the plan’s $68 million cost increase.<\/p>\n

Underground parking will be further evaluated “to ensure that a balance is achieved between cost savings and the value of providing public parking,” according to the city. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In order to improve “the financial profile” of the overall market redevelopment plan, the city will look at a number of funding options, including cost-sharing with other governments and partners, sponsorships, “philanthropic contributions” and taking on debt. <\/p>\n

What’s being asked of councillors<\/p>\n

To be clear, city council is not being asked to approve the hefty total project sum \u2014 not at this point, anyway. Rather, city councillors are being asked to authorize city staff to:<\/p>\n

Spend $7.4 million in 2026 to start designing the Market Square building and York Street plaza, a plan for moving tenants and “a parking replacement and access strategy.” Look at both redeveloping 70 Clarence and maintaining a parking facility there, then reporting back next year.Come back with a recommended financing model for the whole market plan in 2027. <\/p>\n

Rideau-Vanier Coun. St\u00e9phanie Plante, whose ward includes the market, called the new plan “a welcome discussion and long-overdue reset.”<\/p>\n

But Plante, whose first job in Ottawa was in the area, says the new price tag is cause for concern. <\/p>\n

“The report assumes senior government contributions, partnerships and refined revenue models that are not yet secured,” Plante wrote in written comments to the city’s update<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“That does not make the proposal wrong, but I worry that it will cause further delays while we wait for funding and partnership arrangements to materialize.”<\/p>\n

\"St\u00e9phanie‘Residents and business owners should not have to navigate multiple reports and committee agendas to understand what is happening in their neighbourhood,’ Rideau-Vanier Coun. St\u00e9phanie Plante says. (CBC)<\/p>\n

People have been waiting long enough for change, Plante said. <\/p>\n

“The general consensus among those who live in or run a business in the ByWard is that it suffers not only from terrible headlines but from terrible follow-through,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We are very good at meeting to discuss problems. We are less good at implementing solutions with any urgency or seriousness.”<\/p>\n

Plante is suggesting the city create a “public-facing” webpage that tracks decisions, timelines, financial updates and consultation results, pointing out that “if this is truly a city-building project, it should be tracked with the clarity and transparency that such projects warrant.”<\/p>\n

‘A fixed and unavoidable decision point’<\/p>\n

One new tidbit teased by the mayor last week \u2014 $1.9 million for interim “repairs and improvements” to the 70 Clarence garage \u2014 hinted at what the city went on to call “a primary schedule driver” for the overall redevelopment plan: the building has reached the end of its “functional service life.”<\/p>\n

While the funding Sutcliffe announced will help keep the facility in “safe and serviceable condition” through approximately 2028, a much larger $29.5 million would be needed to address structural, mechanical and “life-safety deficiencies” and keep the garage open beyond 2028, the city says. <\/p>\n

\"70‘Everybody knows it’s not in the best shape,’ Mayor Mark Sutcliffe says of the parking garage. (Mathieu Deroy\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Replacing the garage and turning it into a “signature destination building” has been the plan for years \u2014 recommended in the city’s 2022 official plan, for example. <\/p>\n

But the parking garage’s condition, which the city says has gone from “fair to poor” in recent years, means that the 70 Clarence plank of the ByWard Market plan needs to happen early in the redevelopment. <\/p>\n

The garage opened in 1975, making it the oldest of the five garages owned by the city, and is showing signs of “advancing deterioration across multiple structural systems,” according to the city.<\/p>\n

Recent investigations have found “increasing areas of concrete distress and structural deterioration” that, if left unaddressed, “would elevate the risk of injury or property damage,” the city added. <\/p>\n

“Everybody knows it’s not in the best shape,” Sutcliffe said last week. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe City of Ottawa owns four other parking garages besides the one on Clarence Street. The next-oldest went up a decade later. (City of Ottawa)<\/p>\n

Given the scale of required investment and the city\u2019s redevelopment objectives, “full life-cycle rehabilitation is not recommended,” city staff wrote, but should the redevelopment plans take longer than anticipated, “a further structural adequacy review would be required to reassess risk and minimum investment thresholds.”<\/p>\n

The city is looking at two options for the address: “an anchor legacy arts hub” with room for potential residential units, and maintaining parking capacity on the site “through rehabilitation or replacement.”<\/p>\n

Are you a business owner in the 70 Clarence St. parking garage building willing to share your thoughts on the city’s plans? Contact Guy at guy.quenneville@cbc.ca<\/a><\/p>\n

“I know how important parking is to the survival of businesses in the ByWard Market, so I want to reassure everyone that I\u2019ll be pushing for underground parking to replace the parking garage,” Sutcliffe told members of the Ottawa Board of Trade last week. <\/p>\n

\"ProposedThe city has shared this rendering of what the proposed arts hub might look like. (City of Ottawa)<\/p>\n

Safety factors aside, the parking garage, which generates approximately $1.2 million in yearly revenue, is an “underperforming asset” and converting it into a mixed-use hub could turn it into the market’s “financial anchor,” according to the city.<\/p>\n

Whatever its future shape, 70 Clarence and its “fixed and unavoidable [2028] decision point,” remains “the primary schedule driver” for the market redevelopment plan \u2014 influencing the order in which other elements of the program can be carried out, according to the city. <\/p>\n

Because it wants to avoid a construction pile-on, the city says construction work at the Market Square building and its surrounding streetscape would likely need to come after whatever construction takes place at 70 Clarence.<\/p>\n

One of the other things councillors are being asked to approve is for staff to come back in 2027 with a recommended project order.<\/p>\n

\"TableConstruction work on the Market Square building would likely need to be ‘sequenced’ after whatever happens at 70 Clarence, the city says. (City of Ottawa)<\/p>\n

The city’s report does not delve deeply into how to practically tackle socioeconomic challenges it sees as holding the market back, such as “affordability pressures, substance use and mental health challenges, and visible homelessness.”<\/p>\n

“We cannot design our way out of concentrated social realities.\u2026 But if Ward 12 continues to absorb a disproportionate concentration of social services without a broader citywide governance conversation, then we are placing too much weight on capital projects to solve structural challenges,” Plante wrote.<\/p>\n

The market plan update could be discussed at the city’s finance and corporate services committee on March 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The estimated cost of the latest plan for the ByWard Market has gone up by nearly $70 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-498777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}