Centre Slush Puppie [500 de la Cité, Gatineau] | 4000 seat arena | Completed
 

Does anyone have any details of the new arena that is set to open sept 2010.

[Gatineau] Centre Multifonctionnel | 4000 seat arena | Approved
 

Gatineau council proposes $79M arena plan
Downtown facility to be completed by 2012, mayor says

BY DAVE ROGERS, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN JUNE 30, 2010 11:02 PM BE THE FIRST TO POST A COMMENT
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/...791/story.html


http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/...n?size=620x400

Gatineau’s proposed Centre Multifonctionnel is shown from the perspective of Montcalm and Wright streets.
Photograph by: Artist’s Conception

After trying for years to repair or replace the Robert Guertin Arena, Gatineau council on Wednesday decided on a new $79-million arena that will require the expropriation of a city block in downtown Hull.

For now the building is called the “Centre Multifonctionnel” instead of the Robert Guertin Arena because it will be the home of the Gatineau Olympiques hockey team and also provide space for music concerts and, possibly, trade shows.

The 5,000-seat arena will occupy the block bounded by Montcalm, Wellington, Eddy and Wright streets and will require the expropriation of a furniture store, parking lot and a building owned by the Université du Québec en Outaouais.

Mayor Marc Bureau said it was expected the new arena would be completed in 2012.

“We wanted to keep the arena in the centre of the city,” Bureau said. “We want people to spend money downtown to revitalize the area.

“Gilles Desjardins of Brigil Construction proposed an arena in Point-Gatineau, but there is nothing there. We want to keep the money downtown.”

Bureau said the federal and provincial governments hadn’t yet agreed to help pay for the arena, but city officials will meet next week with federal and provincial counterparts to discuss subsidies.

Gatineau councillors hope the federal and provincial governments will pay $52.7 million, or two-thirds of the cost, with the city paying $26.3 million.

The mayor said the city would call tenders for the design and construction of the building. He said the Olympiques may be concerned about the lack of parking, but the arena will be near a Rapibus station and there will be enough parking if the federal government allows hockey fans to use spaces occupied during the day by the vehicles of public servants.

The decision to replace the present 3,182-seat arena on Rue Carillion, built in 1957, comes two years after Bureau announced a plan to refurbish the facility in partnership with the Olym-piques. However, Nathalie Normandeau, then Quebec’s municipal affairs minister, vetoed the renovation plan in May 2009 because the city had not called for tenders.

Most city councillors said the construction of the arena was the start of the city’s plan to bring new life to downtown and to develop Montcalm as Gatineau’s cultural boulevard.

“My family had a house on Wellington Street, and I remember how lively it was there,” Councillor Joseph De Sylva said. “But the government buildings killed centretown, and all the stores on Boulevard du Portage moved to Les Galleries de Hull.

“There will be shows at the arena during the summer, and people will visit the restaurants. During the winter, there will be hockey and concerts.”

De Sylva said the city would also keep the name of Robert Guertin “somewhere in the building in memory of the man who was a great volunteer in the community.”

Stéphane Cayer, co-owner of Vice Versa, a furniture store now on the site, said he had not heard about the new arena until just before Wednesday’s meeting and refused to comment on the impending expropriation.

Officials from the Olympiques did not attend the meeting.

Marjorie Vallée, a spokeswoman for the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League club, said team president Alain Sear could not say anything about the new arena proposal because he was in Florida and hadn’t seen plans for the building.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Gatineau seems to be getting things right these days. I wonder if they've looked to Ottawa as an example of how NOT to run a city. If only Gatineau had regional rail and/or LRT. That would be so delightfully progressive.

This could be excellent news. Note however that the francophone media, unlike the Citizen, are not implying that this is a done deal, but rather that Gatineau is looking to relocate Guertin on this site. The current Guertin site is to be redeveloped with residential if the plan goes ahead.

I have been following this issue for some time, and although some people may have been in the know, it seems like the new site came pretty much out of the blue. I think that even the Olympiques may have been surprised.

Done deal or not its really amazing how gatineau gets things done.Take the 3 new goverment buildings the rapid transit the 2 new sports complexes .I am sure there are other projects in the works as well.

We are supposed to be getting a new central library in the same vicinity as this proposed arena site along Montcalm.

Article in French from this spring:
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-droit/a...ntre-ville.php

Also on the drawing boards is a museum on Montcalm dedicated to this guy, which may or may not be attached onto the new library:
http://www.espacedallaire.org/Brchr-EspaceDallaire.pdf

It's been a while since this project moved but it is still very much on the city's radar screen.

Do you think traffic wise the area could handle a new arena and a library.

I think that the city is looking to have more congestion in this area, not less. Urban planning thinking these days is evolving towards seeing congestion as a potentially good thing. Congestion means lots of people want to go somewhere.

Getting back to Montcalm and environs, I think that the area can certainly handle a lot more people. There is an exit off the 50 at the north end, lots of side streets to the east of the area (St-Rédempteur, Eddy, etc.), Taché down at the bottom plus there will be Rapibus stations at both ends. Should be fine.

Plus, consider that a library doesn't draw that many people. It will certainly draw more people than the area does at the moment, but it won't bring in huge crowds most days. And the arena in their wildest dreams will probably have maybe 75 "event" days a year. Probably closer to 50 or 60 if we are realistic.

Acajack, I gotta say that Gatineau certainly seems on the right path to building a better city with a few exceptions I don't particularly agree with or feel strongly about. Having said that, the fact that your city council is actively promoting the intensification of the Hull Sector and the CBD, creating a true city-centre in Gatineau, procuring rapid transit for the region, building arenas downtown(hopefully) and redeveloping old or useless sites. It's very refreshing to see since Ottawa's council is so incredibly broken and full of councilors who can't see past their own ward.

There is also an extremely out-of-place house that might be gutted as well and that might also spell the end of Vite Vite Patates, Herbal Mergic and the Restaurant des Auvents. I hate to say this but these are all looking tedious so it might not be a big lost especially the house.

I wish they'd get rid of that ENAP building on Eddy. That thing looks so out of place, and it looks like it was built fairly recently. Maybe it was never supposed to be permanent.. I dunno.

Not sure but I think Heritage Canada is also occupying some space in that building, if it's the one at the NW corner of Eddy and Wellington you are talking about. It doesn't look like a permanent building definitely.

Looks like they may be running into funding difficulties, at least for now
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/...888/story.html

Explains why most of the other media except for the Citizen were quite cautious with this story.

Is it possible to use the existing rail bridge to extend the OC LRT over to Gatineau?

Apparently not without first ripping out the tracks, converting it to a BRT roadway, running it into the ground for forty years, then studying whether or not it should be converted into LRT.

Really bumpy this issue, that it might go back to the drawing board although the Mayor seems insisting on that site for the centre.

Sounds like for the provincial government that the Nordiques, (which by the way if they are back would be by far in the smallest NHL market and 2nd smallest market in professional sports behind Green Bay) are more important.

Meanwhile seems the Brigil project is getting backed by Cyril Leeder and the Sens organization. Having said that, if the provincial government can afford to spend tens of millions for an arena for a team that has little chance of returning considering the small market of about 600 000-700 000 and which had previously being unable to keep two minor league teams after the Nordiques moved to Denver they can afford $25 million for a new arena or cultural centre here.

Guess, being cynical, that political affiliation and number of MNA seats matters as Bureau is a PQ militant versus Labeaume which is more ideologically closer then the QLP and that the city of Gatineau has only 5 seats (actually only 2 are exclusively in Gatineau alone) versus the 12-15 seats are Quebec City and which they are vulnerable then the Outaouais seats during an election (see 2007 when the ADQ won almost all Quebec City seats).

Though the Brigil site proposal seems as close to the Rapibus station and you have more room for a larger arena then downtown with some retail and restaurant (s?) accross the 50 with plenty of room for more as well as space for residental and maybe office use. Hate to say this to those preferring downtown space, but the Brigil proposal site seems to have more potentiel.

I guess with the Senators backing, the Brigil project seems to have the lead. Hopefully in all of that it will not just result in just the renovation of the current site.

I think you may be right that Brigil is the darkhouse proposal that might have the inside track. It would be too bad for those of us who see the arena as a key part of the puzzle of downtown rejuvenation.

But I also wanted to say that you are bit off with the above-mentioned politicians' allegiances.

Marc Bureau is a bit of an agnostic or fence-sitter on the Quebec vs. Canada issue. He has said officially that he is a federalist on a few occasions (this is pretty much par for the course when you are mayor of Gatineau, no matter what you really think in your mind). But Bureau is not really associated with any political party. Some people think he is a PQ sympathizer because his chief of staff Luc Bouvier is a big PQ/separatist dude. However, it is not uncommon in Quebec politics to have people who are on different sides provincially work together at the municipal level, even if they disagree on something as fundamental as Quebec's place in Canada or outside of it. This may be difficult for people in Ontario to fathom (and I know I personally found it odd when I moved to Quebec some time ago), but it is no big deal in Quebec.

Quebec City mayor Régis Labeaume is well-known for being a sovereignist and a PQ sympathizer. Every so often he is rumoured to be making the jump to lead the PQ - the latest rumour was just this past summer. Once again, Labeaume is at the municipal level so he has to work with people of all stripes. But make no mistake - he is fundamentally PQ blue.

Can you tell me what is the brigil project.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/07082010/...rena-hull.html

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-droit/a...esjardins-.php