Fast Company
Summary
The plan for a major new $1.4 billion development on the waterfront in downtown Ottawa started like many big real estate projects, with the simple balancing of risk and return. Dream, the developer behind the project and one of Canada’s biggest real estate companies, envisioned a vast new walkable district, with dozens of office buildings and residential towers adding up to 4 million square feet. It would be an inclusive, environmentally friendly, and socioeconomically diverse mixed-use neighborhood—a grocery list of aspirations that most large-scale 21st-century projects tout.
Environmental sustainability is a primary concern. Spread across 34 acres and spilling into Gatineau, a neighboring city directly across the Ottawa River, the project is heated and cooled by a district energy system that uses waste heat from a nearby paper plant and the cool water of the river. Through this system, the project has achieved carbon neutrality. Other goals target waste diversion, water savings, and reducing energy demand. The project is the first in Canada to qualify for accreditation through One Planet Living, an independent sustainability framework that focuses on the challenge of reducing neighborhood-scale carbon and ecological footprints.
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