City of Ottawa

[Richard Eade]

Building anything of great weight above an arena is expensive. All of the weight needs to be transferred out to the periphery since there can be no columns in the middle of the arena - obviously. (Even a green-roof was too much for the future arena at Lansdowne.) Building a new Tom Brown arena in the podium of a tower would probably not be practical.

I wonder, though, if it would be economical to put three 40m x 80m community rinks (ice size is 26m x 61m each) side by side to create a 120m x 80m roof that could support a soccer pitch (size 105m x 68m)? I would be fine with it encroaching on the O-Train corridor a bit. In fact, it could be integrated into the Bayview Station entrance – including a 2nd-level passage from the new ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ to Albert Street. That could allow the east-bound bus stop to move up to the O-Tran station.

Imagine that. An additional two, new, ice sheets and a soccer pitch for the urban core. And it all connected to the intersection of the O-Train lines. It would be close to where thousands (if the promises are to be believed) of new residents will be living. Maybe it (and the Sen’s facilities across the street) could even be used to attract major curling bonspiels or figure skating competitions to ‘The Sports District’ – apart from The Bell Capital Cup and other big, junior tournaments.

Of course, it would mean that the city would need to market the complex. And, as we saw with the old Lansdowne, the city is not very good at promoting their facilities.