Lansdowne 2.0 (Northside Stands/Arena Redevelopment) | U/C

[J.OT13]

Here's the conclusions from the motions from the FEDCO meeting (in bold) as far as I can understand.

Originally Posted by J.OT13

To Menard's credit, he's tabled a few good motions to improve 2.0. I don't remember Doucet doing that with 1.0, using up all his energy to oppose instead. Chernushenko after him was decent though.

Here are the motions in simpler langue (if it passed).

• Better financial oversight by the City (unsure yet); - Passed
• Increase share for affordable housing from the air rights, from $9.75 million to $22.75 million (Passed); - Forwarded to the Council Meeting on November 7
• Staff provide update by Q1 2026 on actions being pursued to improve pedestrian experience on Aberdeen Square (unsure yet); - Passed
• Give us a guarantee that the RedBlacks and 67s will stick around until the end of the agreement in 2075 (amended to 2042 and Passed); - Passed
• Direct staff to collaborate with the Moving Surfaces artist to restore and reinstate the art piece (unsure yet); - Passed
• Additional bus shelter on Bank near Exhibition Way by 2026 (unsure yet); - Passed
• Shuttle service be provided for all events, improve transit on Bank for events and offer promotional rates for the 6 and 7 routes during events. (unsure yet) - Forwarded to the Council Meeting on November 7 as analysis of potential transit improvements

Leiper also had a solid motion.

• Increase MAT contribution from $2 million to 40%, thus increasing the amount over time as the MAT brings in more through increased tourism and inflation (unsure yet). - Passed with more clarity that 40% of the 1% increase of the Municipal Accommodation Tax

Leiper's motion might be what makes the business case and financial plan actually work.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

To Menard's credit, he's tabled a few good motions to improve 2.0.

Here are the motions in simpler langue (if it passed).

• Additional bus shelter on Bank near Exhibition Way by 2026 (unsure yet);

I would really love to know why:

a) A proper transit-shelter structure wasn't incorporated into Lansdowne 1.0 in the first place. The subject was raised during consultations, but, naturally, it was ignored, not worked into the design, not built, nothing. A puny little bus shelter for one of the largest event spaces in the city. Not even overhangs or awnings facing Bank Street to act as transit shelter space. Why are we so bad at this, given our climate? (And Lansdowne is hardly the only instance of this. START BUILDING TRANSIT SHELTER INTO THINGS.

b) No one has bothered to mitigate the problem in the decade since. OC Transpo drivers and other staff see people huddling in the rain and snow; two city councillors and their staff have been in office during this time. No one thought, hey, maybe we should fix this, even a little bit? The people who make transit-related decisions in this town just seem to be congenitally incapable of putting themselves in the place of actual transit users.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Does 2.0 make it impossible to host the Grey Cup ever again?

Overall Grey Cup revenue is now shared. It's not like the olden days where the host team used the game and events to build a rainy day fund.

It's also amazing what you can do with temporary seating now, wrapping it around scoreboards and things like Hamilton did

[qprcanada]

It will be interesting to see the forthcoming plan for the Sens Lebreton rink, now they know what Landsdowne's plans are.

The Sens arena will be on the LRT and by the time it is built, stage 2 will be completed and possibly the Gatineau tram will be under construction.

Landsdowne will have a new bus shelter.

Lebreton will be easier for most residents to get to.

If the Sens can design an arena that can incorporate the NHL and PWHL sized crowds while maintaining a good atmosphere for smaller crowds, there is no reason the Charge would stay at Landsdowne.

Secondly, if they can design the arena to hold smaller capacity concerts without sacrificing atmosphere or sound quality they could steal away some potential concerts from the arena at Landsdowne.

The design compromises in Landsdowne 2.0 are an opportunity for the Lebreton arena.

[613JL]

Hi Phil235, I've been going over the numbers. Mirabella is paying 65M for the air rights. If anyone has any knowledge of what the actual surface area of the air rights is, please share. Right now, the city is pitching that it's air rights for a planned development of 770 units. Say you average 700'/unit, 18% inefficiency. That's a GCA of 636,000ft2. Your GCA per sqft is 102.20$/ft2. This would be, if I'm not mistaken, a record for Ottawa and maybe even Toronto in the height of Covid. In Toronto, prime location, in the height of the market in Q2 19, they hit 73.50$/ft2. Bullben has it at 147$/ft2 but they half the GFA numbers for some reason... Currently, Toronto is 37$/ft2 in the lates released figures.

Right now, land values in Ottawa are trading at 40$/ft2 in prime location. So your best bet, in the current market is that L 2.0 would fetch 25.4M and I doubt you would have many bids coming in. 24M or so of the 65M is going to go towards construction costs/debt. So if Mirabella doesn't close, this project is now underfunded and the tax payers are on the hook.

Anyone know who the other proponents behind Mirabella were?

Originally Posted by phil235

The air rights are a risk, sure, but are they really a big risk? They are a relatively modest piece of the puzzle. Sure, Mirabella could pay the deposits and walk away (still unclear if there would be an additional penalty for doing that), but is that really likely? They are a sophisticated developer - there is no doubt that their bid took into account changing market conditions. I think the risk of a delay in construction is bigger than the risk that they pay $6 million and decide to walk away with nothing. If they don't build, it's much more likely that they try to sell the air rights to another developer and recoup some of their investment (which would go well beyond the deposit paid to the City).

Even if they walk away, it's not like the City is out $65 million. They will just award the rights to another developer. Yes, the price would be lower, but the $65 million was much higher than anticipated in the first place. So the real risk is that we end up somewhere in the ballpark of the original projections for revenue from air rights. Not exactly devastating.

This seems way overblown to me - just a typical risk on a major project. Probably less costly and disruptive than the risk of a major subcontractor going belly up. That I would be more worried about, as it would definitely cause major delays.

[rocketphish]

Lansdowne 2.0 approved in final council vote
City councillors vote 15-10 to approve latest bid to pump new life into Glebe site

Arthur White-Crummey · CBC News
Posted: Nov 07, 2025 4:28 PM EST | Last Updated: November 7

Lansdowne 2.0 cleared its final hurdle at Ottawa city hall Friday, as council approved the $419-million redevelopment project.

Councillors voted 15-10 in favour of the plan after passing several amendments, including promises to improve transit service to the site and work on a solution to keep the Ottawa Charge women's hockey team in the city.

The plan sharply divided councillors. Supporters saw a chance to fund the replacement of aging facilities and put the city’s partnership with Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) on a sound financial footing.

They say the project will make money from retail earnings, ticket surcharges, football profits and property taxes to offset the costs, so taxpayers will end up footing a much smaller share of the total bill.

<more>

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...vote-9.6969378

[Harley613]

Call me skeptical, I'm just a casual fan, but a smaller open air North Stands with no weather protection, a smaller arena, and a smaller park don't really entice me to visit Lansdowne more often. I might spend less time in a portapotty, so I guess that's good, but other than that, what am I gaining here?

[rocketphish]

A reminder of what the Lansdowne Park site used to look like:



https://ottawacitizen.com/news/lansd...-0-right-wrong

[phil235]

Originally Posted by Harley613

Call me skeptical, I'm just a casual fan, but a smaller open air North Stands with no weather protection, a smaller arena, and a smaller park don't really entice me to visit Lansdowne more often. I might spend less time in a portapotty, so I guess that's good, but other than that, what am I gaining here?

Not sure that the size of the stadium has a huge bearing on people’s decisions to attend events. Weather protection maybe, but that’s always been a minority of people who are under the roof. And if you’ve gone to Lansdowne to spend quality time on the Great Lawn, I’ll stand corrected, but not sure what you can do now that you won’t be able to do once the project is done.

There’s no doubt that fan amenities will be much better - wider accessible concourses, decent washrooms and concessions - the North Side is pretty bad now. The arena is a big upgrade in the same areas, and in terms of its ability to host concerts and other events. But really what you are getting is modern facilities that mean we’ll continue to have football and OHL and basketball for the foreseeable future. There was no actual plan B there.

[Fraser]

Originally Posted by Harley613

Call me skeptical, I'm just a casual fan, but a smaller open air North Stands with no weather protection, a smaller arena, and a smaller park don't really entice me to visit Lansdowne more often. I might spend less time in a portapotty, so I guess that's good, but other than that, what am I gaining here?

What difference does a small arena matter? The on-ice/field product is still the same? I don’t go to a Sens game because it’s an 18000+ seat arena, I go because of the product.

That said, I’d argue that replacing a very aging /crappy stadium/arena with a modern one will actually result in me attending Lansdowne more often. I anticipate it being booked far more often for sporting events, concerts, etc than it has been.

[urbanforest]

Originally Posted by Fraser

What difference does a small arena matter? The on-ice/field product is still the same? I don’t go to a Sens game because it’s an 18000+ seat arena, I go because of the product.

Ummm…what? that logic is all fine and good until the event you want to attend is sold out because there are several thousand fewer seats available.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Harley613

Call me skeptical, I'm just a casual fan, but a smaller open air North Stands with no weather protection

How much protection are you getting on the south side?

[elly63]

Originally Posted by urbanforest

Ummm…what? that logic is all fine and good until the event you want to attend is sold out because there are several thousand fewer seats available.

I have a feeling if an event was that easy to sell out that it might be predictable enough it would be held in the big arena.

[elly63]

Some people seem bound and determined to screw around with this until the North stand (and arena) get condemned and it will cost three times as much to replace it.

[AuxTown]

Unpopular opinion but I think we are overestimating the staying power of the PWHL. Yes women's sports is having a bit of a renaissance right now, but it's not a tried and tested product at this point. You need 20 years, bad seasons and a new downtown Sens arena before we can assume they will continue to attract that size of crowd. I have so many friends that live in Glebe, Centretown, Alta Vista, Westboro etc. who seem to have adopted Charge as their favourite club primarily because they don't want to drive to Kanata to see the Sens. A central and accessible Sens arena is going to be big competition for the ladies. Regarding capacity, I would much rather spend a few extra bucks to see the Charge in a sold out 5000 seat venue than a half empty 10000 seat one. Same goes for the RedBlacks and Atletico, I'm not sold that we need as many seats that they are building....and that the classic North-South college football layout is the best one for us.

BTW, if you didn't see the highlights from last nights Atletico final, go check it out! I honestly found it ridiculous that they played 90 minutes in that crap but it's getting international press all around the world. My buddy in Brisbane said it was on the highlight reel this morning!

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/679...snow-blizzard/

• Video Link

What a finish!

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by 613JL

Hi Phil235, I've been going over the numbers. Mirabella is paying 65M for the air rights. If anyone has any knowledge of what the actual surface area of the air rights is, please share. Right now, the city is pitching that it's air rights for a planned development of 770 units. Say you average 700'/unit, 18% inefficiency. That's a GCA of 636,000ft2. Your GCA per sqft is 102.20$/ft2. This would be, if I'm not mistaken, a record for Ottawa and maybe even Toronto in the height of Covid. In Toronto, prime location, in the height of the market in Q2 19, they hit 73.50$/ft2. Bullben has it at 147$/ft2 but they half the GFA numbers for some reason... Currently, Toronto is 37$/ft2 in the lates released figures.

Right now, land values in Ottawa are trading at 40$/ft2 in prime location. So your best bet, in the current market is that L 2.0 would fetch 25.4M and I doubt you would have many bids coming in. 24M or so of the 65M is going to go towards construction costs/debt. So if Mirabella doesn't close, this project is now underfunded and the tax payers are on the hook.

Anyone know who the other proponents behind Mirabella were?

Keep in mind that $10 million of that $65 million is for part of the underground parking the City is building for $19 million. They also got a bit of extra land between the podium and North Side stands for a three level parking garage (not sure if that's in your rough land size calculations).

Originally Posted by Harley613

Call me skeptical, I'm just a casual fan, but a smaller open air North Stands with no weather protection, a smaller arena, and a smaller park don't really entice me to visit Lansdowne more often. I might spend less time in a portapotty, so I guess that's good, but other than that, what am I gaining here?

I agree. This was supposed to be about attracting more people to Lansdowne to make it more financially solvent, but there's really nothing there to do that. They might make a few more bucks from the suites and advertisement, but that's about it. The earlier proposal with the berm mostly preserved, the arena blending in with a green roof, the edge walk, the 2k music venue, Rec Room; that was far more exciting and enticing to attract more people. Now it's just nicer, but smaller, sports venues along with a smaller/blander park. If anything, I could see fewer people coming to Lansdowne because even if they get more events, they'll have a lower attendance. Best case they break even in attendance.

[J.OT13]

It's not the new venues that bother me as much. The football stadium will look a little more coherent and offer better facilities. The new arena will be nicer, modern, more accessible. The PWHL could very well settled into a 5-6k arena after a few years or outgrow even a 10k arena, so building the new arena 8k for them might not be worth it in the long run (though I'm still bothered by the idea of downsizing). FWIW, it does seem OSEG played around with the configuration to raise the capacity from 5.5k initially to 6.6k, though I'm sure there's a few hundred creative numbers in there.

My major complaint is that the site won't have anything new to attract people. We've lost all of those extras that improved the experience and mitigated the negative impacts. Now we're looking at a plan that's purely about the sports venues and places virtually no consideration on the rest of the site.

We're also throwing out millions that were invested only a decade ago; the $4 million art work (motion might end of saving it), the retail, the berm (which will cost millions just to remove it), hundreds of trees, the roof. We're still paying that debt from a decade ago and will soon have very little to show for it.

As an aside, it's strange that we haven't seen a rendering of the arena in hockey and basketball configurations. It's annoying the space between the stands and podium still show a plaza in the renderings instead of the parking structure. I would really love updated site and architectural plans.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

A reminder of what the Lansdowne Park site used to look like:

This is what They took from us!

[phil235]

Originally Posted by urbanforest

Ummm…what? that logic is all fine and good until the event you want to attend is sold out because there are several thousand fewer seats available.

Except that the vast majority of events in those facilities don't sell out. A more full arena makes for a better atmosphere for almost any kind of event, so that will be plus. And for the non-sports events that can sell out, like concerts, I'm not sure the actual seating capacity of the arena is shrinking substantially.

I get the point that there is no new marquee draw on site, but I'm not really sure what that would be. (Aquarium anyone?) I think we are better of modernizing the facilities, ensuring the viability of the current teams and adding capacity for more events. At the end of the day, it's an event space, so better to double down on the events and complementary businesses. Improve the pedestrian realm. The concert hall passed us by, as that gap has clearly been filled elsewhere. And there is no reason to think that the retail won't evolve over time, so maybe we do get a Rec Room moving in at some point in the future.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by phil235

Except that the vast majority of events in those facilities don't sell out. A more full arena makes for a better atmosphere for almost any kind of event, so that will be plus. And for the non-sports events that can sell out, like concerts, I'm not sure the actual seating capacity of the arena is shrinking substantially.

I get the point that there is no new marquee draw on site, but I'm not really sure what that would be. (Aquarium anyone?) I think we are better of modernizing the facilities, ensuring the viability of the current teams and adding capacity for more events. At the end of the day, it's an event space, so better to double down on the events and complementary businesses. Improve the pedestrian realm. The concert hall passed us by, as that gap has clearly been filled elsewhere. And there is no reason to think that the retail won't evolve over time, so maybe we do get a Rec Room moving in at some point in the future.

I do wonder what came first; the City shrinking the podium or Live Nation moving on the Chapters space. I'm 100% positive shrinking the podium was a cost cutting measure, essentially making the same mistake as 1.0, that is cheeping out and creating problems for the future.

Aside from everything that was lost over the last 4 years of value engineering, other options would have been moving the Sunnyside branch of the library, due for replacement. Another option would have been to move the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame to the site and expand it to include the history of Lansdowne. Even just 25% more retail to allow another large restaurant or something. It's clear to me that, just like 1.0, the City is doing the bare minimum outside the two sports venues.

For the event attendance, the City has consistently pointed to the PWHL as representing a small percentage of events at the Civic Centre, but I would love to know how many events total have an attendance of more than 5,500 and 6,600. It's not just the PWHL.