Construction on the beach has been delayed “due to current difficult conditions and supply chain issues,” an NCC spokesman said.
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Ottawa has spent the summer without access to Westboro Beach, one of four in the city that are supervised and a popular place to access the shoreline. But did he have to?
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In early June, as one local resident recalls, the National Capital Commission fenced off the beach for its planned redevelopment, which will include a new year-round pavilion, restaurant, outdoor showers and other improvements. “But it doesn’t seem like much happened,” said Westboro Beach Community Association co-chair Len. Fardella in a Sunday interview. “I think for a couple of months… nothing happened but being fenced in.”
Heading into the summer with the knowledge that Westboro Beach would be closed for review, Fardella said people were sad to lose access to the site, located along Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway, but said the NCC did “a wonderful job” with the community consultation and final design for the renovation, and there is a lot of anticipation and excitement about the end result.
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But some frustration has also been added to the mix as the beach was off limits with no work expected to follow. Hindsight is 20/20, Fardella said, but “I think there was a missed opportunity” to wait to close the beach if it had been recognized that the remodeling project faced delays.
The fence hasn’t been enough to deter some beach users, according to Fardella, who recalled that people broke through the barrier and used the boardwalk over Canada Day weekend.
Construction on the beach has been delayed”due to the current difficult conditions and supply chain issues,” the NCC spokesperson said. Sofia Benjelloun in a written statement, adding that project components are underway and Crown Corporation expects work on the beach to begin before the end of the month. The temporary closure was a decision made in collaboration with the city, she said, and is necessary to “security reasons, because the surrounding areas are used for stage construction.”
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Asked if the delays have affected the timeline for the project’s completion, Benjelloun said NCC’s plan remains to reopen the beach area next summer.
The current situation is disappointing, said the Councilor of the area. Jeff Leeper. But he was sympathetic to the position the NCC found itself in: “staffing and supply chain issues, labor issues have affected construction projects across the city,” and without knowing the details of the challenges they have faced, he did not want to state that the beach closure could have been handled differently. .
Leiper’s hope is that the NCC can meet the summer 2023 timeline to reopen the beach, which he described as a “much-needed and much-loved recreation service in our community.”
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The NCC board approved the final design for the Westboro Beach redevelopment in April, writing at the time that the “scale of the work” required its closure over the summer. Beachgoers were directed to Britannia, located approximately three miles to the west, and Mooney’s Bay to the south. Petrie Island in orleans It is the other supervised beach in the city.
City funds support the redevelopment of NCC as part of an agreement with the Crown Corporation for the use of its land for the western extension of the Stage 2 LRT.
Westboro Beach’s transformation includes new surface parking across SJAM Avenue and a signalized intersection to cross, as well as a conversion of the old parking area into a park and green space.
A new zero-carbon park pavilion with a restaurant and community space will join a reworked version of the beach level Strutt Pavilion – The brutalist concrete structure that served the site for more than five decades. Strutt will remain seasonal, while the new building will be open year-round, serving in winter as a stopover on the Kitchi Sibi groomed trail, complete with ski racks.
