Thanks!
Kenneth

The Transitway is the express bus road — the Westboro station is a five-minute walk. I can see it from my balcony. :-) There’s a local bus stop right outside the door here, but it’s really just for seniors, I think. For anyone else it’s easier to take a faster bus from the station.

I work in Kanata, and while I usually drive in, on days I have to bus to work I can get on a bus at the station and get off at the door at work in about the same amount of time it takes me to drive there, thanks to the Transitway letting the buses avoid city traffic.

There are tons of stores in Westboro and Hintonburg, but they’re mostly small businesses — the sorts of things you’d expect to find in an up-and-coming trendy neighbourhood. Bakery, pharmacy, Jewish deli and bagelry, fresh pasta, restaurants, organic food store, coffee shops, MEC, banks, dry cleaners, and so on, all within walking distance (ten minutes to Westboro, half an hour or a short bus ride to Hintonburg). There’s also a Real Canadian Superstore in Westboro, which is identical to a Loblaws superstore.

I also had to move to Ottawa on two weeks’ notice, back in 2001. Either area would be a comfortable place to live, but Westboro is a great place to live.

The big problem there was that we had a leaky shower wall, and couldn’t get the building maintenance folks to do anything about it. They kept blaming our shower curtain, and eventually the damp, mildewy bedroom closet floor was too much to deal with, so we gave our notice.

As for the rest of the area, it was pretty dull. The Wal-Mart is a pain, but it’s nice having a big grocery store right there (but then again we have the Real Canadian Superstore near us now!). There’s really no neighbourhood around there like there is in a lot of areas of Ottawa (like Westboro or Hintonburg/Mechanicsville or the Glebe or Sandy Hill) so you end up driving a lot to get things you need. It felt more like a suburb. I came here from the Plateau in Montreal and very much needed a thriving local neighbourhood.

(Are you also talking to “nyxie” on the WeddingBells forum? She’s my fiancée!)

I dont know if you would know this, but what about Lincoln Heights/Fields? What kind of area is that? I seem to be getting mixed reviews about that area.

The building itself has been great too — any maintenance we’ve needed done has been done in a timely manner, and the office is easy to get a hold of although they’re a bit understaffed/overwhelmed at times. They’re pretty flexible, too — we had a satellite dish installed a few months ago, and they came up to inspect it and signed off no problem. The residents tend toward senior, but there’s also practically zero young students and very few children around, so neighbour noise hasn’t ever been a problem. It’s awfully nice having central air, too, and it was turned on in time for the first heat wave this summer, although they do wait until the last minute to switch from heat to air to keep the seniors happy.

I’m trying to think of problems we’ve had, but I can’t think of anything — the huge windows mean that it’s a bit chilly near that wall in the winter, but that’s where the heating register is too, and heat and hydro are included, so it’s not like there’s a huge hydro bill in the winter. Some of the apartments have old-ish appliances, but ours were brand new, so if the apartment you look at has an old range it might be worth asking about. The buildings on the north side of the street have an odd oven-above-the-range countertop stove so that might not be that easy to get, but it’s worth a try. But for all I know the old appliances are still in good working order.

Underground parking is probably scarce now but there’s lots of outdoor left. I think we got one of the last underground spots in our building. If you don’t drive, there’s a dirt path to the Westboro transitway station which looks like it’ll be replaced with a paved path sometime this summer. It’s a five-minute walk.

We’re probably going to stay here until we decide it’s time to buy a house or condo. No regrets at all, and I can’t even think of any surprises.

I know this is a bit late (and also a bit random), but how are you enjoying Island Park Towers so far? Is the building well maintained and is the surrounding area okay? I ask this just because I’m moving to Ottawa in a few weeks and I’m in this huge rush to find somewhere to live and Island Park was one of the buildings that I was going to be looking at.

Thanks,

Michelle

The only thing is that there are no left turns from Island Park on to the parkway…

meta