Ottawa Begins $4 Million Center

What started in Ottawa Shluchim Menachem Mendel and Dina Blum‘s basement is now on its way to becoming a $4 million facility at 111 Lamplighters Drive.

The Ottawa Torah Centre (OTC) celebrated the groundbreaking of their new facility Sunday May 12 in Barrhaven.

Valued at $4 million, the facility will be built on a 1.4-acre lot in the growing South Ottawa community of Barrhaven.

A unique structure in Ottawa, the new OTC will offer the Jewish community a one-stop space for holiday events and worship, while also serving as a pillar of community outreach and inter-faith dialogue.

MP Pierre Poilievre, MPP Lisa Macleod, Mayor Jim Watson, and Councillor Jan Harder were among the special guests at the groundbreaking.

A Growing Need for a New Space
The OTC began serving Ottawa’s Jewish community 16 years ago in the basement of Rabbi Menachem M. Blum and Dina Blum’s home, but it quickly moved to a leased store to accommodate a growing number of program offerings and participants. It has since grown into a thriving organization that provides educational and social programs to thousands of people in the Ottawa region.

Year over year, attendance at OTC events have increased, including a 14-fold increase in enrollment at Hebrew School since 2005. The centre also provides weekly Shabbat services, increasingly popular adult educational and social program offerings, and reaches thousands of additional students through educational programs in Ottawa’s public schools.

This year, Rabbi Blum—the founder and spiritual leader of the OTC—tells us that they are ready to expand again. “Put simply, we have outgrown our current facility and we need more space.”

A State-of-the Art Facility
“Our vision was to create a place of warmth and acceptance that every Jew can call home and explore their Jewish identity and heritage at their own pace,” explains the Rabbi. “The community responded in such positive way that in a very short amount of time, we needed to rent more space for our Centre and expanded to 2000 square feet of leased space.”

The new centre, designed by award winning Barry J. Hobin & Associates Architects, will feature all the facilities needed to support OTC’s ever-growing program offerings. A multifaceted building, it will include a Synagogue, a gathering hall, classrooms, meeting rooms, dedicated offices and a Judaic library.

“We are building a real multi-purpose facility to ensure that no space will sit vacant most of the year,” explains the Rabbi. “The way we intend to use the space is integrated directly into the design.”