The Evergreen
The Evergreen on Blackburn came about through an exciting partnership with a community-based endeavour to retain a historic church in the Sandy Hill neighbourhood of Ottawa, Canada. When the Anglican Church decided to sell All Saints church in 2014, the community stepped in to save it and reclaim it as an inclusive space.
A partnership of local residents and business investors managed to buy the church, and guided by the community group’s priorities, has created a restaurant and event space, and formed a new community anchor. The partnership also created the opportunity for much-needed new homes and has partnered with Windmill Developments to deliver the zero-carbon Evergreen community, which we're delighted to recognise as a One Planet Living Global Leader.
The Evergreen will be a 10-storey mixed-use building, with 121 residential units. Coupled with the event hall, restaurant and café in the existing church building, the new development will offer a wide range of services to meet the evolving needs of the Sandy Hill community. The Evergreen will consist of approximately 102,600 square feet.
The project will preserve the historic Anglican Church, constructed in 1900 in Gothic Revival style, which is a designated heritage building. The current design does include demolition of the existing two-storey Bate Hall.
A key feature of the current design is a high-performance, pre-fabricated building envelope. Additional design features include geothermal heating and cooling, two levels of underground vehicle and bicycle parking, as well as dedicated green space along Laurier avenue.
About Windmill Developments
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.
Windmill created Canada’s first One Planet Living masterplan at Zibi in Ottawa, and in 2021, it established the $100m 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.
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.
Health and happiness
To maintain thermal comfort, the buildings are designed to remain below 26C in summer conditions. Passive features that help achieve this include a high thermally efficient building envelope, a window to wall ratio of <30%, and thermally efficient glazing. Active cooling is then provided from the ground source heat pump system.
Equity and local economy
The Evergreen’s action plan has a topic area of Universal Design. The project includes 15% accessible units. The accessibility strategy goes beyond what is dictated by the building code.
Culture and community
The Evergreen is a superb example of how precious heritage buildings can be retained whilst also moving forward to provide new facilities and much needed homes.
The historic church is being restored and imaginatively transformed into an event space available for hire. A café/restaurant has also been opened providing a meeting place for the neighbourhood.
Sustainable water
Water efficiency measures are excellent, with low flow/flush fixtures and fittings. The project is targeting 98 litres per person per day mains water consumption, less than half the local baseline.
Travel and transport
Evergreen is located just short walking and cycling distances from a great range of services and facilities.
The site has a “very walkable” walk score of 85 and a “biker’s paradise” bike score of 99. It is served by 5 frequent bus routes, one from directly outside the site, the others on Rideau St, just 5 minutes’ walk away. The uOttawa light rail transit station is just 16 minutes’ walk away.
Zero carbon energy
The project is targeting zero carbon and will be combustion free in operation.
The project targets LEED Platinum and OHPDS Tier 2 and it uses a passive house-level prefabricated envelope.
The project uses geothermal energy via ground source heat pumps for space heating and for cooling. Domestic hot water is fed from the geothermal loop with a water-to-water heat pump with electric boilers for auxiliary heating.
One Planet Living is our vision of a world where we can live happily within the Earth’s resources, and a straightforward framework to achieve this
Find out more
One Planet Living action plan
The Evergreen - One Planet Living leadership review
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