Townhouses For Sale in Kanata – Morgan's Grant / South March, Ottawa

Living next door to Ottawa's tech campus

The Kanata North Business Park is the reason Kanata earned its Silicon Valley North nickname. The number of tech firms fell after the 2000 crash, but the park is still home to employers such as Nokia, Ciena and MDS Nordion, and it sits right at the edge of these streets.

For a townhouse buyer, the practical effect is a commute that can be a few minutes by car, bike or on foot, instead of a daily run down the Queensway. That's rare in Ottawa's suburbs, where most townhouse neighbourhoods are built around a long trip downtown.

It's also a reason to think about who else wants to live here. Proximity to a major employment area tends to keep buyer and tenant interest steady, though nothing about that is guaranteed and tech hiring has its own cycles.

From March Township farms to 2000s subdivisions

This was the Township of March, first settled by Europeans in the early 1800s, and a few buildings from that era survive, including a former Loyal Orange Lodge on Flamborough Way and St. Isidore Church. Suburban development started in the late 1980s, Minto began expanding north in the mid-to-late 1990s, and the heaviest house and school construction ran from 2000 to 2009.

Today the neighbourhood reaches Terry Fox Drive and Monk Environmental Park and stretches north toward Old Carp Road. Morgan's Grant shares a community association with neighbouring Brookside and Briarbrook, and the streets are laced with recreational pathways and small playgrounds.

The result is a fairly consistent stock: freehold rows and detached homes from one main building era, with a handful of older rural properties at the fringes.

What a 2000s Kanata row needs at this age

Most rows here are now old enough that the builder warranty has run out and the original equipment is reaching the end of its normal life. When you compare listings, look past staging and ask about:

• Roof shingles: original asphalt roofs from the early 2000s are due or overdue. Ask for the year of the last replacement, and whether the neighbours on either side did theirs at the same time.
• Furnace, air conditioner and hot water tank: find out whether they're original, owned or rented.
• Windows and patio doors: fogged seals are common at this age and cost money to fix.
• Basement: many rows were sold with unfinished basements. If it's finished now, ask when, and whether permits were pulled.

A row that's had these items done can be worth more than an identical one next door that hasn't, even if the kitchens look the same.

The downtown commute without rail

Kanata has no O-Train station yet. Downtown commuters drive March Road to Highway 417 or use OC Transpo buses. The Line 3 branch to Moodie and the Line 1 west extension to Algonquin are expected in 2027, which should give Kanata drivers a closer rail connection than they have today, though not one inside Kanata itself.

If both adults in a household work downtown, try the trip at rush hour before you buy. If one works in the business park, the location starts to look very different.