The City of Ottawa says the site it chose for a future west end health hub is not well suited for the project, and staff are recommending the plan move to a different city-owned property on Carp Road. In October 2025, council directed city staff to pursue the development of a health hub on municipal land at 1655 Maple Grove Road, between Huntmar Drive and Terry Fox Drive to expand primary-care facilities in the Stittsville and Kanata areas. A request for expressions of interest was made as part of a two-stage process followed by a request for proposals. In April, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said the city had listed the property for sale to bring more family doctors and physicians to the area. Staff now say the proposed health hub concept on Maple Grove is no longer considered “the highest and best use of the property” given its proximity to future light rail transit infrastructure. The city says city-owned land located at 2110 Carp Road near the Carp Park & Ride would be better suited for the project. Only one submission to a request for proposals was made to purchase the site on Maple Grove, but it “raised potential legal concerns” over the sale of municipal land below market value. “The Maple Grove site is valued at $1.1 million per acre, and the one respondent submitted a bid that was significantly lower per acre,” city staff say. The 16-acre site on Carp Road is the only other area that could provide sufficient size, flexibility and development potential to support the health hub, staff say. “Preliminary evaluation suggests that the site is better suited for this purpose given that there are fewer servicing, financial, and operating constraints,” staff say. Staff say a revised request for proposals would involve broader outreach with the healthcare sector, including hospital and academic partners, and explore possible earlier of staged commitments to pursue provincial funding. “The availability of suitable land alone does not ensure increased access to primary care,” the report said. “A future procurement should assess a proponent’s ability to recruit and retain primary care clinicians, create net-new capacity for unattached patients, establish a sustainable operating model, integrate with existing regional primary care planning and attachment initiatives, and demonstrate how primary care access outcomes will be measured over time.” Councillors will consider the motion to proceed with the new site at the finance and corporate services committee meeting on Nov. 10.
