National Defence Headquarters Carling, or NDHQ Carling (originally Carling Campus), is a site containing

federal government A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...

buildings near the Crystal Bay area in the west end of

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

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. The campus, located at the intersection of Carling Avenue and Moodie Drive, consists of 11 interconnected buildings with a total of of space. The property was acquired by

Public Works and Government Services Canada Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC; french: Services publics et Approvisionnement Canada)''Public Services and Procurement Canada'' is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of Public Works ...

from its original tenant, Nortel, in December 2010, and now houses

National Defence Headquarters National Defence Headquarters (NDHQ) ( French: ''Quartiers généraux de la Défense nationale'' (''QGDN'')) was created through the integration of Canadian Armed Forces Headquarters (CAF HQ) with the civilian Department of National Defence (DN ...

. During Nortel's peak period throughout the 1990s, the

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...

conducted at the Nortel's Carling Campus was a catalyst for numerous

high-tech High technology (high tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or the newest te ...

spin-off and support companies in Ottawa. This development began changing Ottawa's reputation as a government city and the campus even came to represent the city's aspirations of becoming a technology hotbed like

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History

Northern Electric originally acquired the site for their Northern Electric Research and Development Laboratories and built two small research buildings in 1960. In 1971,

Bell Canada Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in t ...

and Northern Electric combined their R&D organizations and formed

Bell-Northern Research Bell-Northern Research (BNR) was a telecommunications research and development company established In 1971 when Bell Canada and Nortel, Northern Electric combined their R&D organizations. It was jointly owned by Bell Canada and Nortel, Northern ...

, headquartered at the Carling site. Starting with just 42 engineers, the site was quickly expanded to house 800 people five years later. Nortel assumed a majority share in Bell-Northern Research in 1996, and the site became part of the Nortel R&D organization. At its peak, the campus had some 10,000 employees, even hosting North America's largest recreational

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league. To accommodate this growth, an expansion project was undertaken in 1997, based on a new campus master plan and an expedited, harmonized development approval process. At Nortel's peak in 2001, the campus housed 8,500 employees. After Nortel went bankrupt in 2009, its research divisions were sold to Avaya, Ciena,

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...

, and

Genband Ribbon Communications US LLC is a public company that makes software, IP and optical networking solutions for service providers, enterprises and critical infrastructure sectors. The company was formed in 2017, following the merger of Genband and S ...

, while the real estate property was purchased by

for CDN$208 million. The site consolidated office space for about 8,500 staff members of the

that were scattered across more than 40 different locations across the National Capital Region. The renovations to accommodate the defence personnel were projected to be approximately CDN$506 million, staged over 6 years. In 2013, it was reported that electronic eavesdropping devices were found at the Carling Campus, and that Nortel had been the target of

industrial espionage Industrial espionage, economic espionage, corporate spying, or corporate espionage is a form of espionage conducted for commercial purposes instead of purely national security. While political espionage is conducted or orchestrated by governmen ...

for nearly a decade before its bankruptcy. This security concern even caused DND to reconsider its move to the site, but federal officials later said they never found any bugs during a sweep. Defence personnel began relocating to NDHQ Carling in January 2017.

Features

Amenities on the site include parks and patios, fitness centre, sports fields, parking for 5,925 cars (including a 480 car parkade), and access to forested lands of the Ottawa Greenbelt.

References

External links

*
Directory of Federal Real Property - Carling Campus Site
{{Canadian Forces Bases Nortel Federal government buildings in Ottawa

History

Features

See also

References

External links