Friday January 14, 2022
What Ottawa is Talking About – 14 January 2022
▪️A terrible fire in a commercial building in Nepean may have taken six lives. A man has died in hospital and five other people are missing. The building at 1995 Merivale Rd. between Cleopatra Drive and Slack Road is registered to Eastway Tank Pump & Meter Ltd. [CBC]
▪️Ottawa start-up Ruckify has shut after failed merger with UK business. Ruckify allowed people to rent out anything – tools, bikes, clothes, etc – and had attempted to take over the UK's Fat Llama, which does the same thing. Because the way the deal was structured, all items in Ruckify's inventory had been transferred to Fat Llama, leaving the company with no business left after the deal fell through. The directors decided to close the company rather than rebuild after burning through $20 million. [Ottawa Business Journal]
▪️Via Rail service between Ottawa – Montréal and Ottawa – Toronto is being reduced. Via Rail is cutting back in response to COVID-19 changes in traffic. Business class will be completely removed. [CBC]
▪️All 7.8 kilometres of the Rideau Canal skateway is open as of this morning. Last year's skating season only lasted 29 days, there is more hope that it will be longer this year. Concession stands and rentals are also open this year. [CBC]
▪️TVO has a comprehensive history Ottawa’s O-Train debacle. Not much new if you have lived through it the past ten years, but painful to see it all in one place. [TVO]
▪️Here's a longread on the short life of the public toilets at the corner of O'Connor and Sparks Street. They existed between 1915 and 1930 and were designed by the prolific Frank Lloyd Wright pupil Frank Sullivan. [Urbsite]
