Ball Diamond in the Rough

 

If you’ve driven down Coventry Road lately or walked across the Max Keeping Pedestrian Bridge to Tremblay Station, you know the spot I’m talking about.

 It’s right behind me in the photo I took this week: the big empty asphalt lot beside the Ottawa Titans’ stadium (RCGT Park at 300 Coventry Road), with the concrete bridge ramps and pillars creating classic “dead space” underneath.

This is classic underutilized city infrastructure — a major public asset sitting in the heart of Overbrook, part of that $13.43 billion 10-year capital ask I wrote about last week. Right now it’s mostly empty outside of game or concert days. But it doesn’t have to be.
What if we turned this space into a year-round community hub?

I asked Grok Imagine to create two concept sketches based on the exact photo and site layout. Here they are:

Look at the “AFTER” side. The big parking lot becomes a permeable-paving community plaza with green lawns, picnic tables, shaded pergolas, and string lights. Under the bridge itself — using the natural shelter of those thick concrete pillars and deck — we add 3–4 colourful food trucks and small local kiosks (tacos, coffee, Ottawa vendors). Rain gardens and bioswales handle stormwater. Multi-use courts, a youth skate/BMX zone, and flexible event space round it out.
Labels on the sketches show exactly how it works:

• Food Trucks & Kiosks (Local Vendors)
• Youth Role Hub (It’s A Trap / North-South Development)
• Community Plaza & Markets
• Green Stormwater Gardens
• Under-Bridge Safe Gathering Space
• Flexible Event Zone
• 15-Minute Neighbourhood Node

This isn’t just pretty renderings. It’s practical space-making that directly applies the lessons from Calhoun’s Universe 25 experiment I wrote about yesterday. 
In the mouse utopia, even unlimited resources led to behavioural sink — aggression, withdrawal, family breakdown — because social roles and meaningful space disappeared. 
Here in Rideau-Rockcliffe we can do the opposite: create a “Creative Universe” where youth and families have real purpose, visibility, and belonging.

Overbrook already faces density pressures and the north-south challenges we all know. North-South Development Roots and Culture Canada’s “It’s A Trap” program is already fighting gang recruitment and giving kids alternatives. 
This activated space would be their natural home — youth-led murals on the pillars, event staffing, coaching clinics, market days. The Ottawa Titans already draw families; layering community programming turns passive spectators into active participants.
Why this fits our asset-management and budgeting conversation

• It’s low-cost, high-impact activation of an existing city-owned site (no new land required).
• It uses the agile capital budgeting pilot staff are testing for growth-related infrastructure.
• Every dollar spent here improves the condition rating of this asset in the open capital register I’ve been calling for.
• Revenue from food-truck permits and events could help offset maintenance — a win for taxpayers.

This is exactly the kind of thoughtful, creative urban design Calhoun later advocated after seeing his mice collapse. We don’t have to accept underused space or behavioural sink. We can design better.

How it's done in Japan.(see above)
Next steps I would push as councillor

1. Direct staff to complete a quick “activation feasibility study” for the Coventry Stadium site (using the data fields I outlined in my open-data post).
2. Bring North-South, the Titans, Parks & Rec, and Tremblay Station stakeholders to the table for a partnership plan.
3. Fund the first phase (lighting, murals, food-truck pads, basic seating) through the agile budgeting tools already under discussion.

Rideau-Rockcliffe deserves more than just fixing potholes (though we’ll do that too). We deserve purposeful public space that builds resilience, gives our youth real roles, and makes better use of the assets we already own.

A full self driving shuttle from the train station

If you can accept that you need a different representative for Rideau Rockcliffe, somebody who wants to make a difference and has the skill, ability and know how to do so, vote differently, vote wisely, vote for Peter Karwacki