Ottawa Korean Church
Ottawa Korean Church is not just a sustainable urban infill project.
Its broader goal is to create a sustainable community that complements and integrates into the local neighbourhood.
As one of the most sustainable new developments in Canada, Ottawa Korean Church provides high-quality, low-carbon urban densification in the right place, with excellent local transit links, and it will use the streetscape and rooftop to create a rich haven for both people and nature. The ambitions in its action plan are comprehensive, with robust KPIs across all 10 One Planet Living principles.
As part of the One Planet Living Fund portfolio, Windmill Development Group aims to make One Planet Living a standard and consistent way of delivering sustainable communities.
A collaboration between Windmill Developments and the Ottawa Korean Community Church (OKCC).
Based in Ottawa’s West Centretown neighbourhood, the OKCC has been serving the local community since its purchase of the 19th-century Methodist Church in 2008, delivering religious services as well as a wide-reaching outreach programme.
Having outgrown its current home, the OKCC is building a larger, more modern facility outside the downtown area. The sale and redevelopment of the existing Church will ensure the OKCC can expand its community programming and support its growing congregation.
Windmill Development Group will redevelop and densify the site, creating a 168,608 sq. ft. residential rental development, featuring three stories behind the existing Church facade, a three-storey podium, a six-storey mid-podium, and a 24-floor tower closer to the Queensway Highway. The terraced design of the building and the retention of the two facades of the existing church maintains the current site’s heritage context and integrates with the neighbourhood scale.
Urban Equation, sustainability advisors on the project, will turn its focus from strategy to implementation, helping Windmill meet the commitments made in its One Planet Living action plan.
Founded in 2003, Windmill is a visionary real estate company focused on creating happy, healthy communities within the resources of our planet.
With a commitment to pursuing One Planet Living endorsement across its projects and an internal ‘impact standard’ to guide its work, Windmill continues to lead the way in sustainable development throughout Canada. It is the first business to achieve recognition as a One Planet Living Global Leader.
Windmill created Canada’s first One Planet Living masterplan at Zibi in Ottawa, and in 2021, it established the $66M One Planet Living Real Estate Fund, in partnership with Epic Investments. The Fund currently has 10 active projects across the Greater Toronto Area and downtown Ottawa, of which Korean Church is one.
The project team acknowledges the peoples and land of the Algonquin Anishinabe Nation. The project team honours all First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples and their valuable past and present contributions to this land.
Action plan highlights ↓
Zero carbon energy Korean Church will be net-zero carbon in operation, with no combustion on site, and will use geothermal energy via ground source heat pumps for space heating, cooling and domestic hot water.
Equity and local economy This redevelopment project helps to secure the long-term financial viability of the Ottawa Korean Church. It will allow the church to build a new facility to meet its needs. The development will include at least 15% accessible homes to meet the Ontario Building Code.
Land and nature Despite the high-density design, the landscape strategy uses the streetscape and the rooftop amenity space to transform a lifeless, tarmac-covered site into a creative rich haven for both people and nature.
Health and happiness To maintain thermal comfort, the buildings are designed to remain below 26°C in summer conditions. Passive features that will help achieve this include excellent building fabric standards, a window-to-wall ratio of <30%, and thermally efficient glazing.
Travel and transport Just a 12-minute walk from the Corso Italia light rail transit (LRT) station and just a 5-minute walk from multiple, well-served bus stops. The site has a walkscore rating of 79 (very walkable), a cycling score of 91 (biker’s paradise) and a transit score of 70 (excellent transit).
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