The company redeveloping the former campus of Natural Resources Canada on Booth Street is planning half a dozen highrise towers, but says it will maintain the heritage feel of the area and iconic smokestack.

Canada Lands Company, the Crown corporation developing a plan for the 2.5 hectares just north of Dow's Lake, gave residents a look at their preferred design concept for the area Thursday night.

The current site is mostly unused buildings and parking space. (Joanne Chianello/CBC)

The revamped design incorporates feedback received from last month's public information session.

The company purchased the land for $12.4 million in October 2015.

The site is bordered by Booth, Norman, Rochester and Orangeville streets.

It includes five brick structures recognized as federal heritage buildings and has been sitting empty for years.

An artist's rendering highlights the concept for a park on the southwestern edge of the development. (Canada Lands Company)

The design concept shows roughly half a dozen mixed-use highrise towers with retail space below.

It maintains the smokestack and heritage facades and adds pedestrian walkways throughout the complex.

A park would sit on its southwest edge.

"There's always a gap between the sizzle and the steak, between the nice pictures the architects draw and what actually gets built on the ground," said Eric Darwin with the Dalhousie Community Association.

"When architects get going on these things they draw lots and lots of trees and lots of green space, but once it actually gets built it might be cluttered with cars."

An aerial view of the preferred design concept, incorporating green infrastructure. (Canada Lands Company)

Early feedback from residents called for a grocery store, small businesses, affordable housing, an art and culture hub and family-size homes with three bedrooms.

There was also a call to maintain the area's heritage look and add much more green space.

"Heritage conservation, connectivity and open space. This is one neighbourhood within the City of Ottawa that has high population and low representation in terms of active planned and modern park space. This is what we'll bring to the site," said Mary Jarvis of the Canada Lands Company.

Cautious optimism

Many longtime residents of Little Italy maintained a tempered sense of optimism.

They said they worried about the parking and traffic congestion the development might bring.

"I like where it is and what they're doing but the fact that it's stuck there, how is it going to fit in with everything else?" said resident Fraser Knox.

"That's my biggest concern. I don't want it to become like Lansdowne [Park] in terms of the big corporate restaurants, the big corporate stores. I don't think that's where it needs to be."

"The big-box stores … may be the only ones who can afford the kind of rent that they'll be charging in those brand new buildings," said Peggy Knox.

An artist's rendering of the Booth Street redevelopment, highlighting the mixed-use retail and residential space, alongside pedestrian malls. (Canada Lands Company)

The councillor for the area said she would be keeping concerns about maintaining affordability in the neighbourhood at the forefront when the design concept goes to the city.

"There's always that risk that a development doesn't properly integrate," said Coun. Catherine McKenny.

"I look at this and the process has been great. I think this is one of our best chances of really getting it right." .

A formal rezoning application is expected to go to the city by late March.