Ottawa’s Coolest Neighbourhood

It took the Wellington West area in Ottawa to become the finest and most attractive part of the city after decades of notoriety for neglected housing, high crime rates and basically, a bland outlook.  Wellington West comprising the Hintonburg and Wellington Village environs, now boasts of shopping centre, great restaurants, theaters and arts venues and a feeling of revitalization.

The 3 kilometre distance along the Wellington Street West from Ottawa’s LRT line to Island Park Drive is nearly 10 minutes west of Parliament Hill.  The changes began with infrastructural development and a huge economic investment of about $25 million for clean roads, additional landscaping, sidewalks, etc. from the city.  The combination of Westboro and Wellington West and Hintonburg makes it the new ‘ít’ destination.  Zach Dayler, executive director of the Wellington West Business Improvement Association, confirmed that it was once a sketchy place with prostitution drug dealings here and there.  However, a sense of community is emerging with the joint efforts of the residents and road reconstruction.

Twiss and Weber have an office space of 1100 square foot in area that is attached to four other similarly-sized units.  It has a storage area in the basement that boasts 900 square feet that rent is not paid on.  The unit is on the street level of a seven-storey building.  ‘’We saw this as just a pop-up shop.

Then there was a chance of renting it and we were like, yup, this is the space,” explains Tonia Weber, Ms. Twiss’s business partner.  She confirmed that even though their rent was skyrocketing since they moved in, it contributed to the kinds of tenants with various businesses and diverse cultures moving into the neighbourhood.  Mr Dayler further adds that the stress on business owners is much especially with the ever increasing rent on their properties but the residents support them and vice versa.

Shawn Hamilton, vice-president at CBRE Ltd in Ottawa said that there was an ongoing project to host huge development plans with a very sustainable industry in Ottawa; it was a federal government site, 3.6 million square feet, to boast 3400 units of residential properties.  He adds that “People are investing in the area, and businesses likewise are investing in the area.”

Charlie Smith, agency owner of Ryan/Smith Creative, an Ottawa-based graphic design agency, explained that he had to downsize which paid off in the long run.  His company which relied mostly on government contracts for its success over the past 30 years, just moved to Wellington West in 2013 and without much ado, purchased a 1200 square foot office for $265,000 especially for its location and price.

His new office boasts of attractive flooring, large street-level windows and projecting designs unlike his former office on Bank Street with 12-foot ceilings and 3,000 square feet.  He added that there was that sense of community and hospitality in Wellington West unlike Bank Street where people barely knew each other.  Ms Weber reiterated that “We want people to shop local because that’s what we do. We’re locally made, we’re locally owned, and we’re locally produced. With all that, if we want people to support us, we need to set the local example and live it.”

The combination of new residents and trendy businesses with the ‘local feeling’ has made the neighbourhood’s tainted history a thing of the past although it (the history) has influenced its success story today.