CBC Ottawa Broadcast Centre
Encyclopedia
Sparks Street
Sparks Street is a street in downtown Ottawa, Canada that was converted into an outdoor pedestrian street in 1966, making it the earliest such street or mall in North America....
in downtown
Downtown Ottawa
Downtown Ottawa is the central area of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Like other downtowns it is the commercial and economic centre of the city. It is sometimes referred to as the Central Business District and contains Ottawa's financial district. It is bordered by the Ottawa River to the north, the...
Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and is home to the head office of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
and the CBC's various English and French language operations in the National Capital Region
National Capital Region (Canada)
The National Capital Region, also referred to as Canada's Capital Region, is an official federal designation for the Canadian capital of Ottawa, Ontario, the neighbouring city of Gatineau, Quebec, and surrounding urban and rural communities....
. The building was opened in 2004, and contains approximately 37,700 square metres (270,000 square feet) of office space.
Previously, the CBC operated out of various buildings throughout the city. The radio division occupied the sixth floor of the Château Laurier
Château Laurier
The Fairmont Château Laurier is a landmark hotel in Downtown Ottawa, Ontario located near the intersection of Rideau Street and Sussex Drive designed in the Châteauesque style.-History:...
hotel, while the television division operated out of a building in the Westboro neighbourhood. The CBC's Parliamentary Bureau operated out of the National Press Building on Wellington Street
Wellington Street (Ottawa)
Wellington Street is an important street in Ottawa, Canada most notable for being one of the first two streets laid out in Bytown in 1826 Wellington Street (French: Rue Wellington) is an important street in Ottawa, Canada most notable for being one of the first two streets laid out in Bytown in...
and the Booth Building on Sparks Street. The CBC head office previously occupied the Edward Drake Building
Edward Drake Building
The Edward Drake Building represents one of the best examples of modernist architecture in Canada's National Capital Region.Located in Ottawa, Ontario, the building was designed by D.G. McKinstry and constructed between 1961 and 1964...
in Ottawa south, but budgetary cutbacks in the 1980s and 1990s led to the sale of that building and to a drastic downsizing of the head office staff. Prior to the opening of the Broadcast Centre, the remaining head office staff shared space with the television operations in the Westboro building.
The Ottawa Broadcast Centre was built by and is owned by Morguard Investments. Not all of it is leased by the CBC, with the top floors occupied by the House of Commons administration (Information Services). It is located at 181 Queen Street, between Bank Street
Bank Street (Ottawa)
Bank Street is the major north-south road in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It runs south from Wellington Street in downtown Ottawa, south through the neighbourhoods of Centretown, The Glebe, Old Ottawa South, Alta Vista, Hunt Club, and then through the villages of Blossom Park, Leitrim, South...
and O'Connor Street. The rear of the building backs out on the Sparks Street pedestrian mall. The site had been vacant for several years and had previously been home to a Woolworths department store.
Several of the studios and the newsroom are located at ground level on Sparks Street, allowing the public to observe from outside through 4 metre high (more than 12 feet) windows. Eight different CBC news services, consisting of 200 editorial staff in the National Capital Region, operate in both English and French out of the main newsroom to produce content for radio, television and the internet.
The main design feature of the Broadcast Centre is that it appears as a typical multi-storey office building on the Queen Street frontage, whereas the Sparks Street frontage is consistent with the low-rise development on the pedestrian mall. Given the significant terracing of the building's Sparks Street façade above the fourth floor and the grade differential between Queen Street and Sparks Street, the building is 12 storeys on Queen Street, but appears to be only four storeys in height from ground level on Sparks Street.
Although the built-form treatment on Sparks Street has been widely acclaimed, the building has been criticized for the lack of a public entrance on Sparks Street. Visitors and non-CBC employees working on the building's upper floors must access the building from Queen Street, thus directing pedestrians away from the pedestrian mall. A pathway linking the Queen Street lobby to Sparks Street was cut from the original design to make room for a larger newsroom.
