Building LeBreton Flats - Master Planning
 

http://ncc-ccn.gc.ca/projects/lebret...-redevelopment

Building LeBreton

http://ncc-website-2.s3.amazonaws.co...20190307094248

The NCC is moving forward with the timely development of a Concept Plan that will provide a renewed vision for the redevelopment of LeBreton Flats. Benefitting from early engagement with the public, the Algonquin Nation, stakeholders, the surrounding community and the City of Ottawa, the NCC intends to seek municipal approval of the concept plan and associated zoning, before moving to land transaction. The NCC will be open to a flexible real estate strategy to increase competition and leverage opportunities. In addition, in order to create synergies and ensure greater connectivity, the NCC will be launching a Request for Proposal to redevelop the Library District, a 2.9 acre mixed-use site adjacent to the future location of the new Ottawa Public Library and Library and Archives Canada

“Today, we reaffirmed our strong commitment to bringing back a vibrant community in the heart of the National Capital Region. We thank the public for their shared passion in wanting a well-thought-out vision for the Flats. As we launch this process, the NCC Board of Directors is committed to engaging the public and our various stakeholders in setting out a renewed vision for LeBreton Flats’’, said NCC Chair, Marc Seaman.

This development, anchored by the Canadian War Museum, the Ottawa River, the future public library and two LRT stations will include the revitalization of the aqueduct and Nepean inlet and allow for consideration of a potential anchor institution or major events centre.

This renewal process will build on lessons learned in realizing the creation of a lively fusion of residential, commercial, cultural, and social elements accented by world-class public-realm amenities. The NCC is committed to obtaining public input before going to market and will be open to flexible phasing to respond to market conditions and new ideas.

“A lot of work is already under way and soon we will invite the public to provide their input to help us design a refreshed vision for LeBreton Flats,” said NCC CEO Tobi Nussbaum. “The redevelopment of LeBreton Flats remains one of the NCC’s top priorities. While we are starting a new process today, we are not starting from scratch.”

The way forward-Timeline

http://ncc-website-2.s3.amazonaws.co...20190307083325

Quick Facts
• The site to be developed covers an area of 22.7 hectares (56 acres).
• It is served by the light rail train with the Bayview Station and Pimisi Station.

I like this plan, though agree with the mayor's comments that we need to make sure there is a bigger plan and not just building condos like they did for claridge.

I'm hoping the library as an anchor of the first parcel encourages other institutional or public-facing edifices to consider relocating there.

I'd actually suggest bayview as the second parcel, leaving the central area open for future development and an arena should melnyk or another owner consider it down the road. This would also likely lead to redevelopment of the city centre complex adjacent to trinity's bayview towers.

The downside of this is going to be non-optimal usage of Pimisi station right now, but its still going to get a lot of rush hour use from the lebreton/Gatineau shuffle.

UPDATED: NCC to roll out LeBreton Flats redevelopment in stages — with door open for an NHL arena

Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: March 7, 2019

The National Capital Commission is proceeding with development of a small corner of LeBreton Flats, but leaving unsettled an anchor use like an NHL arena or new national museum.

In the wake of the collapse of the $4.1-billion plan to move the Ottawa Senators downtown, the NCC has decided on a baby step instead of a bold reimagining of the entire 56 acres.

It intends to invite proposals for the newly-named “library district,” a three-acre piece on the southeast corner of the site near the future main branch of the Ottawa Public Library and touching the soon-to-be-opened Pimisi LRT station.

After a summer of consultation, the request for proposals would go out in November or December, with NCC approval expected in the fall of 2020 and a construction start in the spring of 2021. The development will have transit-oriented, mixed uses, probably housing, retail and commercial.

New chief executive Tobi Nussbaum suggested an NHL arena or a major cultural institution like a national museum might still be in the long-term cards, but is certainly off the front-burner.

“On a site this large, with the phasing occurring over many years, we can be open to locating a major event centre on LeBreton Flats should there be interest and opportunity in the future.”

For now, the NCC has roughly divided the Flats into five development areas, with the library district closest to being shovel-ready because a zoning plan is already in place and the soil does not have contamination problems.

The phasing of boutique-style development is a stark departure from the NCC’s approach from 2014 to 2018 when it embarked on a long process to find a single proponent to develop a unified vision of housing, commercial, retail, and anchor uses, principally the NHL arena.

But that plan fell apart in spectacular fashion just before Christmas in a series of clashing lawsuits between the main parties — Senators owner Eugene Melnyk, Trinity Development Group chairman John Ruddy and key project manager Graham Bird. A mediation effort failed just before the Feb. 28 deadline.

Their plan, RendezVous LeBreton, was to have a private-sector consortium develop all 56 acres of prime land with an NHL arena by the river, a Sensplex rink complex, an Abilities Centre, a hotel, commercial and retail components and about 4,000 housing units.

That plan is now in ashes.

“Flexibility” is the buzzword with the new approach, meaning the NCC wants to be nimble enough to adapt to changing market conditions and unseen opportunities, like a museum.

“We want to be open to exploring a flexible real estate strategy,” said Nussbaum, who only stepped into the top job a month ago, “as opposed to disposing the entire 56-acre site to a single proponent.”

The library site is already before city hall to be rezoned. It will include a mix of housing styles, some as high as 25 storeys. The site will also mesh with existing plans from Claridge Homes — to the east — and exploit its proximity to an aqueduct that feeds into the Ottawa River.

Thursday’s news represents something of a back-to-the-future approach for the NCC.

In 2004, the NCC sold 10 acres at the eastern tip of the Flats to Claridge for $8 million with an eye on bringing life back to the area. Sales were slow, to the point that, in 2018, about 500 units were built but the phase was not sold out and the area still lacked basic amenities, like a grocery store or coffee shop.

But the emergence of the transit line, plus the additional housing density, may help change that.

NCC chairman Marc Seaman began Thursday’s news briefing by thanking the public, which has waited for significant progress on the Flats for 50 years and has endured multiple rounds of consultation, with another on the way.

“Most of all, I want to thank the public for their patience and understanding through this process and for their shared passion in wanting to see a proper and well-thought out vision for the redevelopment of LeBreton Flats.”

A spokesman for the Ottawa Senators said it was too early to say whether the hockey team would be interested in any of the parcels, which, at this point, are only vaguely defined. Bird could not be reached for comment, and a spokeswoman for Ruddy said the developer was “digesting this announcement, and trying to understand what it means.”


LeBreton’s new calendar:

• Community consultation, June 2019
• Request for proposals on three-acre library site, Nov/Dec 2019
• Request for proposals for one or more of remaining four parcels, Spring 2020
• Sale of library district land, Fall 2020. Construction start, Spring 2021
• Possible construction start on parcels of remaining 52 acres, Fall 2021
• Anchor uses, like NHL arena? Undetermined.

To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email [email protected]
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn


https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...o-an-nhl-arena

The only way an NHL arena is feasible on Lebreton Flats or anywhere else is if it is part of a bigger development. When the OMB killed the development around CTC, the debt from building the arena led to the bankruptcy of the Senators. A similar situation on Lebreton Flats with the arena project separately funded will have the same outcome. There is no longer a sound economic basis for the new arena.

Even with Lansdowne, it was only viable with the redevelopment of the park as a whole. Even then, the city provided financial assistance.

With Lebreton Flats to be broken up into smaller parcels, the parcel for the arena will not generate enough revenue to finance the project.

I expect that CTC will remain the home of the Senators indefinitely. The dream is dead.

The new economics — and risks — of LeBreton

James Bagnall, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: March 8, 2019

Celebrated author Michael Lewis put it best in his latest tome, The Fifth Risk: one of the biggest risks facing government today lies not in politics but in managing large projects.

Failure to assess what could go wrong, and to install safeguards, was behind the government’s shocking inability to properly launch Shared Services Canada in 2011 and the Phoenix pay system in 2016. Hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money has been squandered as a result.

We can be thankful things never got that far at the National Capital Commission. With its decision Thursday to reboot the procurement process for remaking LeBreton Flats, the NCC acknowledged its first pick for a manager of the $4-billion, 20-year project — the RendezVous LeBreton partnership of John Ruddy and Eugene Melnyk — was making a mess of things.

Nevertheless, there’s now a much different risk at play — namely, will the NCC be able to transform LeBreton without turning it into a patchwork of competing and perhaps financially incompatible visions?

NCC chief executive Tobi Nussbaum laid out a dispiritingly vague plan Thursday for breaking up LeBreton’s procurement into six separate phases, beginning with a 2.9-acre piece of land between the new Pimisi light rail transit station and the future Ottawa Public Library.

It will be eight months before the NCC completes another round of engagement with the public and feels comfortable with issuing a detailed request for proposals to fill the so-called Library District with condos, retail outlets and other commercial buildings that will pay for the public spaces.

Not until the spring or summer of 2020 will the NCC begin soliciting bids for “one or more” other parcels of land.

This means that next year the LeBreton project will be roughly where it was in the spring of 2016. Four wasted years and then some.

On the plus side, this is where things, potentially, get interesting.

By busting up a single overarching procurement into multiple pieces, the NCC has changed the economics of LeBreton profoundly. Potentially dozens of new players could enter the site, though the advantage remains with the finalists of the previous competition. Ruddy, Melnyk and the partners associated with Devcore Canderel DLS have spent thousands of hours studying this piece of land and the permutations it permits.

Hypothetically, if six different teams win the right to develop the area, each would have to include sufficient commercial properties to pay for the financing of their particular piece. Also, if the land parcels are developed in sequence, each would have a bearing on the profitability of the next one.

This was precisely the dynamic at the heart of the $1.7-billion legal battle between Melnyk and Ruddy. Melnyk claimed that Ruddy’s participation in a retail-office-apartment development at 900 Albert St. — just south of LeBreton — profoundly downgraded the viability of the Rendezvous LeBreton project.

Melnyk’s concern was that the construction of three large towers at 900 Albert St. — located at the new LRT Bayview station — would mean the sale of some 200 apartments annually, which in Melnyk’s view would detract from sales of condos on LeBreton. The Rendezvous LeBreton plan also envisioned the sale of about 200 residential units annually over more than 20 years.

A PwC real estate study Melnyk commissioned last year projected the two developments would compete head-on between 2019 and 2025. Ruddy maintained there is plenty of demand for both projects.

But, taking Melnyk’s concern at face value for a moment, how are housing revenues affected under the NCC’s rebooted (and delayed) procurement? At the very least, Ruddy will have several more years to try to fill up his 900 Albert St. properties (InterRent REIT is also a partner) before a new LeBreton developer receives NCC approval to begin building.

Could Ruddy himself be that developer? Sources suggest he remains interested. If Ruddy does bid on the piece of LeBreton adjacent to 900 Albert, that would amount to a declaration he believes he can finance both projects simultaneously.

And what about Melnyk? On Thursday, the NCC left open the possibility of a piece of land for a future “major event centre.” The Ottawa Senators said it’s far too early to discuss how, or if, the team might make use of it. But this much is clear: if Melnyk wants an NHL stadium on the site, to own or to rent, he must align himself with some deep-pocketed partners.

In part this is because the he has shown himself reluctant to contribute substantial equity of his own. Even if we accept Melnyk’s lack of trust of Ruddy as the major factor, he faces a new hurdle. Melnyk must somehow put together revenue streams sufficiently large to finance a stadium — despite having substantially less acreage to work with compared with the RendezVous LeBreton plan.

The NCC’s fresh approach does have the considerable advantage of letting the economics play out more gradually. It may be that LeBreton doesn’t achieve critical mass in terms of residents and visitors for another decade. Until then, the financial underpinnings for an NHL stadium might not be favourable. So be it.

This promises to be a long, tortuous journey for those impatient to see progress on the Flats. The project management risks have multiplied, as has the potential for disputes between future developers.

Fortunately, none of the individual pieces will threaten the whole — as the implosion of RendezVous LeBreton did. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing.

https://ottawacitizen.com/business/l...ks-of-lebreton

After LeBreton collapse, NCC takes deep breath, swallows humble pie

Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: March 8, 2019

There was a lovely phrase used by new National Capital Commission chief executive Tobi Nussbaum on Thursday about yet another dismal day for LeBreton Flats.

“We’re really trying to find the balance between ambition and humility,” he told reporters in his first media appearance since taking over on Feb. 4.

“We don’t have all of the answers right now.”

Humility, ah yes, quite a virtue. Convinced it needed a home run, the NCC came to the plate, swung for the fences, missed the ball and promptly fell on its ass. How else to summarize the last four-and-a-half years of futility?

Here’s a question the NCC will wrestle with for the next few months: Who in the development community wants to work with these guys anymore?

Think of it. The principals in the RendezVous LeBreton Group spent in excess of $4 million on their winning bid and follow-up prep work to launch a $4.1-billion mega-build on LeBreton’s 56 acres. It was one of the most ambitious proposals in the city’s history: an NHL arena, a Sensplex, the Abilities Centre, a hotel, 4,000 housing units, lots of commercial and retail and consultant Graham Bird’s brilliant idea to build over the LRT tracks to make a seamless site.

We forget, for a moment, about the losing bid, from Devcore Canderel DLS Group, backed by the Montreal money men, like André Desmarais and Guy Laliberté.

Devcore president Jean-Pierre Poulin said this week the partners spent between $3 million and $4 million on their bid. And CBC reported last month that the NCC had spent close to $2 million in shepherding this plan, only to have the flock fall off a cliff, with $10 million blowing in the wind.

So, forget the home run. The NCC is now trying to hit a single, breaking the site into five chunks and, in the next 18 months, invite bidders to take on a piece, presumably in developments that abide by some kind of unifying or complementary vision.

Poulin isn’t sure whether the Devcore group will bid on any of these parcels. He’s still disappointed about losing the competition in 2016 and still unsure why the RendezVous group scored higher. (Devcore had way more bells and whistles, but it didn’t have Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk.)

He said the group tried repeatedly to get some feedback from the NCC but couldn’t even get a call back.

“We sent five letters, they never even returned our call. How is that even possible?” he asked Thursday, somewhat bitterly.

“You’ve been invited to the tent, you spent four years and four million dollars and nobody even calls us back?”

There will be other requests for proposals in 2020, but Poulin sounded a little gun shy.

“Is it going to be an RFP that’s going to be respected?”

The Devcore group even added an arena, at the Bayview LRT end, so this wouldn’t be a glaring omission compared to RendezVous’s bid.

“We always said we were flexible,” said Poulin. “What is going to be different this time?”

This underlines a truth about LeBreton, which Nussbaum seemed to be hinting at: it is not the Holy Grail of residential real estate and big builders are not busting down the door to get a foothold. Trinity Group’s John Ruddy has 900 Albert to occupy him, along with a pile of other projects; Claridge, which built on the eastern Flats, has the 45-storey Icon on the go, plus other irons in the fire; Minto is busy being Minto; etc., etc. …

A leading housing executive told me this years ago: there are all kinds of places to build in Ottawa without enduring the meddling from a Crown agency pre-occupied with wonky notions like “the national interest.”

The shame of this collapse is that the NCC squandered the goodwill and legacy opportunity that both Ruddy and Bird saw in the vision. It’s not like they did this because they need the work.

Despite Devcore’s experience, Poulin thinks an NHL arena will eventually be built on the Flats.

“Hockey is going to be played on LeBreton, that’s for sure. It makes sense for everybody. There isn’t a better site for it. Everyone would benefit. The city, Mr. Melnyk, the citizens.”

Poulin said he’s hoping to meet with Nussbaum soon to talk about “irregularities” in the first bidding process and what the future might hold for Devcore. He said the partnership, including the deep-pocketed financial players, is still intact.

So we await more pitches, hoping to move the runner along.

To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email [email protected]
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/co...ows-humble-pie

You’re assuming that the surrounding development needs to be the size of Lebreton. I kind of doubt that’s the case. In fact, the sheer size of the development and lengthy horizon may have been its Achilles heel. There isn’t a single other arena in the league that’s part of a development the size of Lebreton, so it’s clearly not a prerequisite.

I fully expect to see another attempt to build an arena there because it is far and away the best site in the city. The public support would likely be in the form of land and tax breaks, and the financing would rely on a ticket surcharge to cover a portion of the cost.

LeBreton Flats reset 'unacceptable,' Devcore head says
'It's not just sour grapes. It's a sad outcome,' says developer Jean-Pierre Poulin

Kate Porter · CBC News
Posted: Mar 09, 2019 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 4 minutes ago

A Gatineau developer who took part in the ill-fated procurement to redevelop LeBreton Flats maintains the process unfolded in an unfair way, and its demise means the capital has missed an important chance to create a landmark in its downtown.

The National Capital Commission announced Thursday yet another reset for the property, putting forward a new plan to carve up the 22.7-hectare site and develop it as separate districts — with or without a major anchor attraction like a downtown arena.

"It's extremely disappointing. I believe, personally, it's unfair," said Jean-Pierre Poulin, president of Devcore.

Poulin said he was speaking for himself and not on behalf of the other members DCDLS, with whom he put forward a high-profile but unsuccessful bid to redevelop LeBreton Flats three years ago.

​Poulin said the new districts now envisioned by the NCC would mean the site develops in a piecemeal way, missing out on the chance to make Ottawa a desirable destination for tourists from around the world.

"It doesn't make any sense to me. It's not just sour grapes," said Poulin. "It's just a sad outcome, not just for us but for the city of Ottawa and Canada in general."

Poulin believes the NCC had the right idea in 2015 when it launched a request for proposals that described creating a "capital landmark" of "national significance," one that would have generated experiences for the public that were "primarily non-residential."

The DCDLS bid was inspired by Millennium Park in Chicago and the High Line in New York City, he said.

The original winning proposal put forward by Eugene Melnyk and John Ruddy of Rendezvous LeBreton included a new arena for the Ottawa Senators and more than 4,000 housing units.

DCDLS, meanwhile, proposed half as much housing, a linear park, an aquarium and variety of museums — including an automotive museum that proved unpopular with the public.

Immediately after Rendezvous LeBreton came out on top in April 2016, DCDLS sent the NCC a letter raising concerns that the process did not lead to a selection that met its stated criteria.

​"There was a lot of irregularities and there was change during the course of this process. And we tried to notify the NCC. We sent multiple letters. They never got back to us — not even a phone call," Poulin maintained Friday.

In December 2018, DCDLS said the NCC had an obligation to turn to it after the partnership between Ruddy and Melnyk deteriorated in sensational lawsuits.

The NCC clarified to CBC News that its board decided nearly one year ago to negotiate exclusively with Rendezvous LeBreton and would no longer consider the DCDLS proposal.

The NCC also pointed out Friday it had hired an external fairness monitor to oversee the entire process.

It officially ended the 2015 procurement on March 1, but the NCC will allow the players who took part in it to bid again for the right to bid again when the NCC puts sections of LeBreton Flats out to tender in the years to come.

Poulin doesn't believe he'll ever be able to recreate the calibre of team and proposal that DCDLS submitted back then — not that he necessarily wants to, after his experience with the NCC.

"Putting a white blanket over it and just calling [the original] process dead is not acceptable," said Poulin, adding he was considering his options.

Poulin said he now hopes to raise these issues at a meeting his team has scheduled with Tobi Nussbaum, the NCC's new CEO.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...-rfp-1.5048982

Devore either needs to provide reasonable proof that they have the resources to implement their plan or go away already.

Let's hope that they can make a go of it, otherwise, we will likely end up with a bland Claridge Phase 2 and 3, totally devoid of life.

There needs to be vision because nobody seems able to look beyond post-war autocentric development. We have seemed to have forgotten how to build a new urban neighbourhood.

Is it not still an option for an entity to ask the NCC for more than one of the parcels?

You are right, but won't a tendering process not necessarily produce that result? I believe the Mayor has the same concern that breaking up the property may not make an arena viable.

I'm hoping the NCC creates a master plan for the entire site, including the Library District piece. Impose minimum requirements such as covering the rail line, direct connections to the stations, demand retail/restaurants/cafés along the aqueduct, street grid, Preston extension. In short, stick with what put RVL over the top in 2016.

In terms of phasing, start with the Library District of course, followed by Pimisi South and Pimisi North. With all of these pieces, we end up with a complete urban neighborhood around Booth and Pimisi Station.

Next, launch Bayview East. My reasoning for pushing it back is that we haven't yet figured out the transit piece. Will the diesel Trillium cross, or will STO's electric train? Will the line be single or double tracked? Maybe it won't be rail at all, it might be buses or we might decide to just use it as a MUP and have transit cross other bridges. In another, very unlikely scenario, the City might decide to reserve space to interline Trillium and Confederation at some point (based on usage and feedback regarding the airport link?). Until this important aspect is figured out, we should wait before developing as it would further limit our options.

The final phase could then be the central area between City Centre and Preston. That sector, IMO, provides enough land to build an arena (should that be the project chosen) along with the associated development to help fund that said arena. The arena doesn't need to be 100% funded by adjacent development. The revenue generated by events, concessions and parking will also be key to the arena's funding.

The problem is money. Neither the NCC nor the city want to spend any and developers won’t come up with tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions for additional infrastructure.

Devcore had a terrible plan. It was car country with a bunch of isolated pavilions (lots of razzmatazz to each, but no urban fabric). If that money wants back into Ottawa to play, they need to completely redraw their plan.

What Rendez-Vous Lebreton did well is to see this enormous project as (1) consisting of a LOT of land, (2) various neighbourhoods, not just one, (3) needing a sense of urbanity along every street edge, (4) taking full advantage of the Aqueduct for real urban animation, (5) covering the LRT right-of-way with a pedestrian street and turning the transit corridor into a subway - like a later cut-and-cover, (5) placing the NHL arena between two stations in order to feed the streets and their bars/restaurants with arena crowds on their way to and from the stations.

What Rendez-Vous did not do so well is (1) the Preston Street extension as a fly-over above the new "Canada Blvd" - this was deemed necessary because of how the grades come together but it was still, I think, a sub-urban approach to the knot, (2) too much green space focused in the north-east - there is already the big common in front of the War Museum where Bluesfest sets up, the Holocaust Monument, the green space and park on the Claridge side, and they were adding another large green space in the fourth corner of Booth and Wellington, effectively distancing the museum and the islands from the rest of the urban fabric, (3) still treated the Parkway as a Parkway - this should be back on the table and we should seek to have the parkway meld into an urban avenue as soon as you're entering this new neighbourhood, (4) weak connections to the river.

What any new plan should keep is all the good parts of Rendez-Vous, serious work on the weak parts, and the ability to go by way of smaller parcels while keeping the door open (and a couple of parcels available) for an NHL arena. If the covering of the LRT corridor is cost-prohibitive, then the matter becomes north-south connectivity - where, how, how often.

:tup:

RVL's master plan was basically done by Windmill, right?
I don't know if they retained IP on it or if it flowed to their client. If Windmill still owns it they should be able to partner with any future bidders on these parcels.

Isn't Windmill the ones developing Zibi? If so I think they have enough on their plate for a while, not sure they would look at bidding for Lebreton.

Sorry, that wasn't clear, I meant they could just provide the plans they've already created if they hold the IP. They could probably modify anything to suit.

Windmill is busy on the sales and construction side, not sure if their planning people are that busy right now. They could probably fulfil the same role they did in RVL with any of the parcel bidders.

Board of trade calls on NCC to sign up Devcore Canderel DLS to get the job done at LeBreton Flats

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: March 15, 2019

https://postmediaottawacitizen2.file...trip=all&w=750

The Ottawa Board of Trade wants the National Capital Commission to partner with Devcore Canderel DLS to transform LeBreton Flats with a grand vision, rather than seeing the federal agency hive off chunks for redevelopment.

Ian Faris, president and CEO of the board of trade, said Friday the business community wants the NCC to take a “visionary approach” to LeBreton Flats, not a “modular approach.”

“We’d like them to go back to the other proponents because we think that it’s a much bigger, visionary exercise and process as opposed to taking the compartmentalized, zoning approach that we think the NCC announced last week,” Faris said.

Faris said the board of trade wants to keep pressure on the NCC, and to a lesser extent, the City of Ottawa, to maintain momentum on LeBreton Flats.

The NCC reset its redevelopment process for LeBreton Flats after its preferred project partner, RendezVous LeBreton Group, could not resolve the internal squabbles between Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk and Trinity Developments founder John Ruddy. RendezVous wanted to build an arena for the Senators’ relocation downtown, plus condos, commercial units and other attractions.

DCDLS came second in the NCC’s redevelopment competition. The consortium had backing from André Desmarais of Power Corp., Guy Laliberté of Cirque du Soleil, William Sinclair, co-founder of JDS Uniphase and the Mierins Family to build a massive mixed-use community, anchored by an arena plugged into Bayview Station.

However, the NCC last week announced it would take a more incremental approach to the redevelopment, starting with an open competition to build on the northeastern corner of Albert and Booth streets, near the future super library in what’s now referred to as the “library district.” The NCC has identified four other development districts across the remainder of LeBreton Flats.

The piecemeal procurement strategy would be more flexible and nimble to development trends, the NCC says.

However, the board of trade would rather have an overarching vision for LeBreton Flats.

Faris said the board of trade hasn’t talked with DCDLS but it believes the consortium is a “viable option” for the NCC.

The board of trade’s position won’t be a surprise to the NCC, since the two groups have had an ongoing dialogue about LeBreton Flats, Faris said.

Faris said the board of trade likes the hockey “dimension” to the LeBreton Flats redevelopment, especially to fuel the tourist sector.

“But we don’t want it to be a deal-breaker,” Faris said. “If it’s not going to be part of it, we still want to see LeBreton Flats developed as vibrantly as possible.”

This newspaper has reached out to the NCC for comment.

[email protected]
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/business/l...lebreton-flats

I still don't understand why a revamped or tweaked DCDLS proposal is out of the question...

If they are to split the land and parcel off to different developers you can be sure that all developers will be proposing condos on their lots - that's whats most profitable. Why would any developer go out of his/her way to propose an attraction or public housing or any other amenity? :shrug:

:tup:

I know the criticism of the DCDLS proposal, however, if we want to expand our tourist area to the west, and support waterfront developments, we need to have more attractions than the War Museum and an arena, if the latter ever gets built. I particularly want to see the Aquarium built on Lebreton, which is a multi-generational attraction and a welcome escape in our long winters.

I agree that economics of parceling the land will lead to luxury condo heavy development. If we leave public amenities up to the city, we are almost guaranteed that they will be mediocre quality.

something about all this just doesn't sit right with me.

the NCC and the city have had palpable resistance to the Devcore proposal for some time. Why? Jim Watson was on the mic saying we need a new RFP almost a minute after the Rendez-vous was cancelled. Why?

What is it about Devcore's proposal that makes it such a non-starter? To the point the NCC won't even respond to their questions? No reason has been provided to the public or Devcore.

I'm not the only one scratching my head; the same article on facebook has comments about the secrecy, suggestions of developer kickbacks.

This thing is a total mess, and frankly, I liked the devcore proposal as much right from the start.

I sure hope developer interests are not trumping the public's in this situation. I have no reason to suggest it but like everything involving the flats and the senators...secrecy, mystery and silence with a dash of crazy.

Threats of lawsuits if proper process is not followed?

I attended the public event for the proposals at the War Museum way back when and was absolutely confident DCDLS was the clear winner. Frankly I found the Rendezvous proposal a snoozefest aside from the arena. The DCDLS proposal was visionary and felt like something you'd see in a new district in China these days. I really hope they find a way to work together and we don't get a condo wasteland.

The majority on this board preferred the Rendezvous proposal, although maybe it was just the ones who were most vocal who made it seem that way.

I felt the same way as you when I saw the proposal at the War Museum and I met someone I knew who was working on the Rendezvous proposal. I had to be diplomatic at the time. DCDLS seemed more visionary especially if we wanted tourists to find Lebreton attractive. I know some poo pooed some of the attractions. The attractions may have changed by the time of implementation. I like the idea of thinking outside the box and that was the DCDLS proposal. Sometimes we want to do the tried and true or compromise our way towards mediocrity.

All I want to avoid is Claridge Lebreton Phase 2, 3, 4+ and that is a real possibility given the recent trend of building condos over offices and retail downtown.

Even setting aside they didn’t have a plan to pay for any of the proposed facilities, unlike China where a local authority would just throw money at it, it would have been quite dead most of the time (Ontario place).

Why would an area full of attractions and a good mix of office/cultural/retail/residential be quite dead most of the time? Deader than Rendezvous which was some condos and a few restaurants along a storm drain? Also, Ontario Place is nothing like the DCDLS proposal.

I think Ontario Place (before it closed) was very similar to the DSDLS proposal. A bunch of random attractions, a lot of open space and mid century modern architecture. You would park, go to the attraction you wanted to see, walk back to your car and drive home.

The Devcore proposal was terrible for several reasons: (1) it treated the entire Lebreton area as a series of "sites" with no urban fabric between them - and the flashy tourist attractions were basically standalone buildings on top of a gigantic parking garage; (2) very weak residential component, segregated to the south along Albert, with none toward the river; (3) poor north-south connectivity - in effect, Lebreton would've been sliced into two very disconnected areas: the Wellington corridor with its tourist attractions; and the Albert corridor with its residences; (4) a car museum? really? (5) a bunch of other flashy, easy-to-render, feel-goody things that were by and of themselves not "wrong" but, again, shown as "sites" independent of an urban fabric, or in abstraction of one, (6) the arena was too close to one of the stations, not between the two, and way too self-contained - again, not part of a restored city grid and not even trying to be "of the city" but very much a "pod" on its own.

It's a snazzy, snake-oil-salesman approach to redeveloping a piece of land that is one-third the size of downtown Ottawa. It's tugging on the easy heartstrings without doing any of the real heavy lifting in true city-building. It delivered a bunch of g-spots, independent of each other and interchangeable but without any real connecting tissue. And above all, it's basically a car-centric design posing as the opposite.

To me the crux of the issue is that Devcore was basically building a theme park, while Rendezvous was building a new urban neighbourhood. This naturally meant Rendezvous would be a) of longer term value to the city (no need to redevelop the whole damn thing again once the attractions aren't interesting anymore), and b) more activity (a neighbourhood with tens of thousands of residents and workers is naturally going to be more busy than a tourist theme park). Furthermore, it made a better addition to Ottawa. We've already got plenty of places that tourists gawk at that die after 6pm, we don't need more.

I think these criticisms of the Devcore plan are to a degree oversimplification of a very large proposal. First off, they have said numerous times they are willing to look at any component of the proposal and change.

The other thing they may have done better is propose 2500 residential units instead of 4000, since the latter estimate is in part what caused the Rendez-Vous plan to fall apart. It was deemed unrealistic by PWC and one of the partners.

There was a YMCA, a school, a Canada Communications Centre, the skateboard park would have been extremely successful.

But to throw out the baby with the bathwater, to me, is a mistake because it will ensure Lebreton builds out at a glacial pace over the next 100+ years when you had 2 rich billionaires ready to work with you to do pretty much whatever you wanted. Again, this seems like a mistake to me and the public should be told why...

I think this is the key. How soon can this market really absorb that degree of residential development in a reasonable time frame? We already have three other major residential projects on adjacent lands.

It seems that we need to find the right balance between residential, commercial developments and attractions. The key is that the attractions must appeal to Ottawans as well as tourists so that it becomes sustainable.

Too much residential development will leave the area sterile just as much as if we built all office buildings on the site. Can you imagine if Pentagon North had been built there as originally planned? With today's security, it would be a 'no go' zone, dead as a door nail.

There is no comparability between any Lebreton proposal and Ontario Place, that was totally segregated from residential development and separated from the rest of the city by an expressway. Lebreton absolutely cannot be an autocentric development. It is too bad that the Confederation Line will have so limited amounts of Park n Ride lots on the route until Phase 2 for the east end and Phase 3 for the west. This will really limit accessibility to the site from the suburbs.

The NCC was looking for a turn-key redevelopment, not a vague proposal full of pie-in-the-sky ideas that could be re-worked to suit the NCC's vision. Even after the NCC clearly stated why they preferred RVL and what they didn't like about DCDLS, the latter was still acting like a deer in the headlights, demanding answers to why they weren't picked.

The same could be said for all the attractions proposed by DCDLS, if they were ever built. Could the City support so many new attractions at once? Would these new destination suddenly attract the tourist numbers needed? Most of what was proposed exists everywhere else in the world. So why would anyone come to Ottawa for something they could see, say in Montreal or Toronto?

Besides, DCDLS's plan B for any of the projects that might have fallen through (like the library) seemed to be condos.

Yes, the RVL proposal fell through because of bickering between the two lead partners, and yes, DCDLS might have gone past the final steps needed for the land transfer (though we never heard anything from any of the partners beyond Devcore and Canderel, so who knows if Desmarais and Laliberté would have pursued the partnership), but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the DCDLS proposed attractions, other than the stuff south of the LRT (minus the library), the aquarium, the mall and maybe the arena would not have come to fruition.

probably a good statement everyone can agree on...

Can we all also agree that the NCC needs to be removed from Lebreton for this to be any chance of successful?

I know some on here are quite defensive about the NCC.... but I simply have to point to the rotting corpse of 24 Sussex to provide evidence of the NCCs lack of caring and/or ability to get things done.

I think that is exactly right. Devcore treated it like a student project, where their job was to brainstorm some ideas and make some nice-looking renders. There was no semblance of a viable business plan, credible urban planning or a path to get the attractions built.

GIBBONS: NCC could get LeBreton back on track by revisiting Devcore proposal
Rick Gibbons
Published:
March 18, 2019

So, it appears the National Capital Commission has no intention of abiding by its own process to select a viable plan to develop LeBreton Flats.

Maybe it has lost faith in its own strategy, or maybe it was all a ruse aimed at creating the illusion of a fair and open competition four years ago while the fix was in for the local bidders from the get go.

The RendezVous partnership of Eugene Melnyk and Trinity Developments’ John Ruddy was always seen as the hometown favourites battling against well-moneyed Quebec investors who also had serious designs on owning the Ottawa Senators one day. And they weren’t beyond forcing the issue by proposing an NHL arena as a centrepiece of their development plan, even though they didn’t yet own a team to play there.

Imagine if the skate was on the other foot, so to speak, and the RendezVous bid failed to win the rights to develop LeBreton Flats. Imagine it was then denied a second chance when the alternative bid collapsed. There would be uproar among Senators boosters and calls for changes in NCC leadership.

If it really was a fair competition four years ago, and if the two viable finalists really did meet the criteria, then the NCC had an obligation to turn to the Devcore Canderel Group as soon as it became clear the RendezVous project was headed for the dumpster and couldn’t be salvaged through mediation.

Instead, the NCC ignored its own original process and refused to answer numerous calls and letters from Canderel, which now wants back in the game. Instead it announced a timid new strategy of piecemeal development for the property — with no overarching vision and, at this rate, no real hope of ever becoming a world-class centrepiece in the heart of the city.

The Canderel proposal was a pretty good bid and probably would have been embraced by the NCC were it not for a slightly superior bid by RendezVous. So, why is Canderel now being ignored like its bid was never seriously considered?

It’s too soon to blame any of this on the NCC’s new chief executive, Tobi Nussbaum. But it’s also not too late for him to take the reins early and put the NCC back on track.

Devcore has been waiting for its phone to ring and its letters to be answered by the NCC for weeks now. It’s considering an aggressive legal challenge that could result in the kind of wrangling that would tie up development for years to come.

Devcore president Jean-Pierre Poulin complains of “irregularities” in the process and is frustrated the NCC won’t now return his calls.

“We met all the criteria,” he said in an interview.

“We were a preferred proponent. The NCC asked us to step on the sidelines (after Devcore finished second in the competition) and then didn’t decide to call us back. It’s very disappointing.”

Poulin won’t say why he was invited to join mediation efforts between former RendezVous partners Melnyk and Ruddy after their partnership collapsed. He won’t even hint what was discussed.

It may have been an attempt to get all the rival bidders into the same room to see if a joint alternative proposal could be developed that would salvage the main components of the RendezVous bid and avoid the kind of legal challenges that always flow from the collapse of projects this magnitude.

The NCC does not want to spend the next few years in court. Cases of this sort take years and often millions of dollars to litigate and would push a key piece of LeBreton development back into the deep freeze for a decade or more.

“What Ottawa needs in our estimation is a project that is really going to knocks our socks off,” says Ottawa Board of Trade president Ian Faris.

His board is urging the NCC to revisit the Canderel bid now that the RendezVous bid is dead.

The board fears the NCC is losing momentum for development and needs to get back on track by honouring its original commitment to a process. It could start by answering Canderel’s calls.

With a federal election looming, politicians of all stripe will be anxious to step into the vacuum created by absent leadership by the NCC.

This whole exercise of selecting a major development proposal was designed to keep politics out of the process. On that score, the NCC may be about to fail miserably.

https://ottawasun.com/opinion/column...vcore-proposal

Enough about DevCore! JFC...

Did you attend the same public session I did? The DCDLS presentation area and 3d mockup were literally made out of balsa wood and glue like a high school diorama project. The Rendezvous proposal at least looked like they put some effort into their presentation. Not saying that that necessarily is reflective of who should have won the RFP but it very much felt to me like Devcore phoned it in very badly at least insofar as that part was concerned.

I was at the same event.

I wondered at the time whether Devcore had been planning something else originally and changed directions relatively late in the process. They were initially reported to be involved with Broccolini.

Forget about Toronto, Sidewalk Labs – build a smart neighbourhood in Ottawa instead
An urban affairs researcher makes the case for Sidewalk Labs and other smart city developers to turn their attention to LeBreton Flats

By: Patrick Gill, OBJ contributor
Published: Mar 19, 2019 2:44pm EDT

After failed attempts to develop LeBreton Flats, the National Capital Commission recently announced it was adopting a new approach for developing the 21-hectare property.

This reset is positive news because it gives Ottawa a rare opportunity to beat other North American cities, particularly Toronto and Montreal, in developing smart city infrastructure and sector expertise.

Smart cities use available and emerging technology to tackle their greatest policy and service challenges. With cities around the globe rapidly undertaking projects to become smarter, it’s unsurprising that U.K.-based ARUP Group estimates the annual marketplace for smart city solutions could hit as high as $1.8 trillion by 2020.

Ottawa is already a smart city, thanks to its strong history of innovation fuelled by a diverse ecosystem of tech firms and STEM talent. Becoming smarter and growing Ottawa’s density of tech companies are well-documented priorities for Ottawa city council.

That’s why LeBreton Flats should strategically be leveraged to attract North American tech firms to develop and showcase smart, inclusive and resilient communities for Ottawans to live in and for the world to notice.

As the NCC seeks new partners to develop LeBreton Flats, now in smaller stages, it should proactively engage developers who are smart city minded and willing to partner with tech firms to design and construct smart infrastructure and mixed-use developments. Finding such companies won’t be difficult.

Smart city developers and tech firms are fighting for the chance to build on small parcels of Toronto’s underdeveloped waterfront. Sidewalk Labs, a sister company of Google, has been given the first crack at a smart neighbourhood through a project known as Quayside. According to a recent Environics Research survey, 55 per cent of Toronto respondents supported this smart city project, and just 11 per cent opposed it.

The NCC should invite the many businesses sitting on Quayside’s sidelines to tour LeBreton Flats to see what an LRT-accessible, centrally located and council-supported project looks like. Moreover, the NCC should inform these businesses they could start developing a smart community in Ottawa today, rather than waiting years for a shot in Toronto. Even Sidewalk Labs should be invited to swing by for a look.

If the NCC and Ottawa council decide to foster smart development with the tech community in LeBreton Flats, it will require some additional work upfront to establish a robust policy for new data generated by smart city infrastructure. Then again, this is work the City of Ottawa needed to do at some point anyway.

Smart city infrastructure is coming. The question is whether Ottawa wants to lead the innovation and reap the ensuing rewards.

Patrick Gill is an urban affairs researcher and joint author of BiblioTech – a proposal for putting city libraries in charge of data generated by smart city infrastructure.

http://www.obj.ca/article/op-ed-forg...ottawa-instead

Well to each their own I guess. I found the Rendezvous proposal stiff, lazy and boring. It seemed so very 'safe' and Ottawa-like, whereas the DCDLS presentation seemed like some actual world class city building, backed by billionaires no less.

I don’t think “backed” is the right word. More like lazily endorsed.

It is easy to identify fault with a plan that someone does not like. A condo heavy proposal is not going to be exciting.

It seems that Ottawans do not want to move beyond its boring reputation. It seems that Ottawans do not want to embrace something that has a bit of risk from a group that is backed by the country's most well known showman. Yet, we go with a safe proposal and it goes up in flames big time. The back up to this will almost certainly be an extension of what Claridge has done on Lebreton.

Is this really what we want?

Nothing wrong with condos. People need places to live.

Of course you are right, but we need this to be more than a patch of condos. No matter what the plan, condos will be part of it. This is such an important location to be just condos and a few businesses to support them. I will be extremely disappointed if Lebreton turns out to be only that.

absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

^ Exactly.

I still maintain that DCDLS should have gotten the chance to negetotiate with the NCC. They could have tweaked their plan to make it more palatable (merge the best of both type of thing), and as a lesson learned for the NCC, been forced to provide evidence of financial viability.

Hitting a hard reset like this is ... typical.