By:  Elizabeth Payne, Ottawa Citizen

It could be years before Ottawa’s former Domtar lands are transformed into the lively waterfront community the property’s new owners envisage. There are hurdles to overcome first. But clues to what the ambitious project might look like can be found in similar developments across North America.

Cities around the continent have seen urban industrial landscapes turned into vibrant communities in recent years by combining old buildings with new uses. Some, such as Winnipeg’s The Forks, are built on water. Others, such as Toronto’s Distillery District and Portland, Oregon’s Pearl District, are built around restored heritage buildings. Some include housing as well as restaurants, retail and business. Almost all have a cultural element. Many are built around the concepts of environmental sustainability and accessible public space.

Windmill Development, the Ottawa company that is in the early stages of trying to transform the historic Chaudiere islands property, wants to include all of those elements in the project it says will be Canada’s most sustainable mixed-use community. The development, which it is calling The Isles, will also represent a public unveiling, in a sense, of Chaudière Falls, which has effectively been closed to public viewing for nearly a century.

What will it look like? It is too soon to say, but the development will likely be influenced by other successful heritage or eco-heritage districts, as similar communities have been called.

Here are some of the more prominent examples:

Granville Island, Vancouver

Once an industrial manufacturing area, the peninsula and shopping district located across False Creek from downtown Vancouver, is now a popular spot for tourism and entertainment. It has also long been the comparison designers and potential developers have used when talking about the Domtar lands’ potential. Mark Brandt, the Ottawa architect who designed the National Capital Commission’s master plan for the Domtar lands, and is now working with Windmill, has called the property Ottawa’s crown jewel and compared it to Granville Island — given its waterfront location, its link to an industrial past and its potential to be a hub for activity and tourism.

The Distillery District, Toronto

The revitalization of a collection of derelict Victorian industrial buildings in Toronto’s downtown is a lesson in how such districts can become a public draw and creative hub. The car-free area, which includes heritage buildings that house restaurants, galleries and studios among other things, has reportedly caught the eye of the developers planning to redevelop the Domtar lands. The Distillery District is a leading example of the “interesting interface between the old and the new” that defines the new urban heritage districts, according to Toronto-based urban planner George Dark.

The Evergreen Brick Works, Toronto

Built around a former brick factory in Toronto’s Don Valley, the Evergreen Brick Works has made sustainability a key to its redevelopment as a showcase for environmental design and an urban gathering place. It includes an LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum office building, minimal energy and water use and more. “It’s a kind of ecologically driven heritage district,” says Dark, which is also one of the principles around which Windmill is designing the Domtar lands.

The Forks, Winnipeg

Like the Chaudière islands, Winnipeg’s popular The Forks area — at the fork of the Assiniboine and Red rivers — was once an important aboriginal meeting place, and later became an economic hub as the location of the city’s rail yards. Chaudière, Victoria and other small islands in the Ottawa River near Chaudière Falls were also important aboriginal gathering places that later became the centre of Ottawa’s, and much of the country’s, lumber-based economy. Today, The Forks is a major gathering spot in the city with museums, a market, shops, outdoor activities and river walks.

The Pearl District, Portland, Oregon

Once an area of industrial decay, the Pearl District is now one of Portland’s chicest neighbourhoods, one that has integrated the city’s industrial history into its design, and incorporated aggressively sustainable policies. It includes a historic armory converted into a theatre that is the first building on the National Register of Historic Places to achieve LEED certification. Brandt sees parallels between the Pearl District and some of the plans for the Chaudière islands. And, he notes, heritage preservation and environmental principles come from the same root. “Whether conserving natural resources or heritage resources, it is all the same.”

There are many other example including, to some extent, Dockside Green, the Windmill project in Victoria with on-site waste water treatment and a biomass gasification plant, among other green innovations, that was selected as a model development by the Clinton Climate Initiative. Windmill has said it will use similar sustainable technologies in the Chaudière development.

The community that is eventually developed on the former Domtar lands will likely reflect elements of other heritage and ecological districts but, Dark says, it will be like no other.

“It’s magical,” he says of the site. “It is one of those places that there are not a lot of around.” And, Dark says, transforming the historic lands on the islands in the Ottawa River will change the city.

“Your city is in the process of figuring out the next round of renovations, and it is not on a small scale.”

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