By James Bagnall, Ottawa Citizen, July 11, 2019
From the 23rd floor of Ottawa’s newest apartment complex at 100 Frontier Path Private, the east end of the city stretches in great green swatches towards Montreal, bisected neatly by the Queensway.
Down below, Blair Station sits silent. It is the easternmost terminus of the first phase of Ottawa’s light rail system, which was to begin operations last year, but has been pushed to sometime later this year.
Philip Fraser, the chief executive of Killam Apartment REIT, is puzzling over how the LRT’s builders could be so far behind schedule. “This doesn’t make sense,” he said, during a recent tour of the apartment tower. “These people have done this before.”
Fraser, of course, has a direct interest in LRT’s punctuality. His company has a joint venture with RioCan REIT to build and manage up to five apartment buildings that could eventually be home for nearly 1,000 residents. The presence of an LRT station just steps away is a key feature of the marketing of these rental units.
https://ottawacitizen.com/business/local-business/can-ottawa-support-the-new-and-proposed-high-rise-condos-along-its-lrt-line