Lansdowne Park Redevelopment Phase 1 | Completed

[S-Man]

Where is this investment going to come from if we throw out OSEG?

Well, FoL seems to think there was a lineup of economically valid, better proposals outside the city's door when they were locked out by the OSEG deal. The viewpoint of FOL is the same as their former councillor Clive - always thinking there's a better way than the present, that everything should stay stagnant for decades until a nebulous, dreamlike proposal comes along that fulfills everyone's wishes and more. Nothing less than a rose-coloured dream that only exists in the mind will do.
That's not how you build cities. You must deal with real things in the present time. Not put projects on hold for decades and cancel others because a better one might be just over the horizon.

[reidjr]

Originally Posted by S-Man

Well, FoL seems to think there was a lineup of economically valid, better proposals outside the city's door when they were locked out by the OSEG deal. The viewpoint of FOL is the same as their former councillor Clive - always thinking there's a better way than the present, that everything should stay stagnant for decades until a nebulous, dreamlike proposal comes along that fulfills everyone's wishes and more. Nothing less than a rose-coloured dream that only exists in the mind will do.
That's not how you build cities. You must deal with real things in the present time. Not put projects on hold for decades and cancel others because a better one might be just over the horizon.

I beleave the fol is playing with fire if oseg bid gets kicked out i can see a very big backlash aginst the glebe people won't shop and eat there etc.

[S-Man]

Judging by their inability to deal with having competition, and having stores go under two weeks after road construction starts, i think less and less people are shopping in the Glebe.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by S-Man

Well, FoL seems to think there was a lineup of economically valid, better proposals outside the city's door when they were locked out by the OSEG deal. The viewpoint of FOL is the same as their former councillor Clive - always thinking there's a better way than the present, that everything should stay stagnant for decades until a nebulous, dreamlike proposal comes along that fulfills everyone's wishes and more. Nothing less than a rose-coloured dream that only exists in the mind will do.
That's not how you build cities. You must deal with real things in the present time. Not put projects on hold for decades and cancel others because a better one might be just over the horizon.

The FOL know very well that that isn't true. If they had even the slightest bit of evidence that there was a viable competing proposal in the wings, they would have raised it in court. That would be the best evidence that the City should have used a competitive process. By leaving that out, the FOL are implicitly acknowledging that there were no serious competing bids.

[Dado]

Do you seriously think anyone else was going to put in a bid after the City violated its own processes to allow Lansdowne Live! to go through outside the bounds of the design competition that was already underway? How stupid would anyone else have to be to put themselves through that sort of grief? The one exception - John Martin - is pretty much the exception that proves the rule. So of course there are no competing serious bids. It's a red herring to bring it up because there is no rational reason anyone should expect there to be any given what occurred.

The salient point is that the City had no need to cancel its design competition. For a brief moment it looked like Ottawa had begun to grow up and take a step forward by holding a design competition for Lansdowne to which the public was going to be invited to participate, but that kind of progressiveness was too revolutionary for Ottawa.

Instead, it was interrupted by the backroom dealing of vested interests who knew they didn't stand a chance in a design competition, something that was demonstrated for all to see with their lame Lansdowne Live! proposal whose sole real hook was getting a CFL team and not the quality of what was presented, which has had to be modified several times along the way to get it up to something passable, of which the OMB settlement is the latest example. Since the cancellation of the design competition, the City has been making it up as it goes along, trying to justify a convoluted, barely comprehensible deal to OSEG and a developer that seems to spend much of the rest of the time suing the City on other matters.

At this point we're so far gone that we're going to have to go with this deal or something very much like it and we'll never get to know what could have resulted from the design competition, but the way this was done should never happen again.


As for where we might have got the money to do something else, while the most gung-ho pro-OSEG councillors were busy telling the public the City had no choice since it had no money, many of those same councillors were busy voting for a huge bus tunnel at Centrepointe whose total costs once finished would have been enough to pay for Lansdowne to be redeveloped and a new stadium built at Lebreton or Bayview. So if you want to know where our financial options went, go look at the huge covered hole in the watery clay of Centrepointe.

[lrt's friend]

Dado has a point to some degree, but only to a degree.

First of all, the Lansdowne Live proposal did not stop Eugene Melnyck from quickly assembling his own idea and presenting it to council. We also saw a suggestion for a Bayview stadium although there was no financial backing. Both of these ideas presented a problem because neither addressed Lansdowne Park. In fact, money directed at a project at another location would make it less likely to do anything except demolition at Lansdowne. We could have had a design competition again for Lansdowne but the last time around did not generate anything that was the least bit publically acceptable. Would a design competition have produced anything better this time? I guess we will never know but where would the financial backing come from with both Melnyck and some of the largest Ottawa developers out of the picture? I think that forcing a design competition at this point will likely lead to worse results and a real possibility that financial backing will not available with city having to pick up the entire tab. This will lead to inaction for years. Despite what has been said about untieing the connection between sports franchises and other aspects of the project, it is likely the only solution to making Lansdowne Park a success at this point. A disconnection has a high risk that everything will simply fall apart. We lose the renovation and the sports teams and we return to ideas of building condos along the canal like in the 1990s.

I also think that tying in the Baseline station 'money sewer' is not entirely fair. There is infrastructure money going towards that whereas that kind of funding is highly unlikely for a stadium renovation. Of course, I think that the Baseline project is out of control spending and an outrageous subsidy to accomplish transit oriented development next to the station.

[reidjr]

The only way i would support a design competition is if there is an agreement signed by both sides the voty and the fol which states that the best bid wins thats it no omb or court challenges.

[McC]

Originally Posted by reidjr

The only way i would support a design competition is if there is an agreement signed by both sides the voty and the fol which states that the best bid wins thats it no omb or court challenges.

and why not require every citizen of Ottawa to sign it? that's not really how democracy works, people don't sign away their right to disagree and mobilize against something they don't like... unless of course they're getting paid off (see agreement, non-disclosure).

[reidjr]

Originally Posted by McC

and why note require every citizen of Ottawa to sign it? that's not really how democracy works, people don't sign away their right to disagree and mobilize against something they don't like... unless of course they're getting paid off (see agreement, non-disclosure).

So if this goes on for years costing the city millions of dollars thats fien with you.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by Dado

Do you seriously think anyone else was going to put in a bid after the City violated its own processes to allow Lansdowne Live! to go through outside the bounds of the design competition that was already underway? How stupid would anyone else have to be to put themselves through that sort of grief?

The salient point is that the City had no need to cancel its design competition. For a brief moment it looked like Ottawa had begun to grow up and take a step forward by holding a design competition for Lansdowne to which the public was going to be invited to participate, but that kind of progressiveness was too revolutionary for Ottawa.

I don't think that you understand my point. For the purpose of the legal challenge, the Friends don't have to demonstrate that someone else actually put in a bid. All they would have to produce is evidence from some other interested party stating that they would have bid, or even were interested in bidding, had the competition not been cancelled. That would be a critical piece of evidence vis a vis the City's claim that sole sourcing was warranted. The fact that they cannot find even one other party who is expressing an interest is a very good indication that this "queue" of potential bidders just doesn't exist. Well, that and the fact that 30 years has gone by without a better proposal surfacing.

This unwavering faith in the design competition also baffles me. Sure, design competitions are preferrable in some circumstances, particularly when the City has earmarked the money to actually implement the winning design. But that was not the case here. What you are calling a "design competition" was actually a process to award the right to develop the site. There is simply no realistic possibility that any bidder was going to make a proposal that didn't include a very similar commercial/residential component, because nothing else would produce the revenues to support the stadium, particularly without a confirmed tenant.

Having seen numerous failed design competitions elsewhere (Downsview and Nathan Phillips Square come to mind), I think that there is a very good argument that a collaborative approach with private sector partners is preferrable in this type of complex endeavour. It allows for a more evolutionary process, based on input by various stakeholders. Results do matter, and I have seen no evidence whatsoever that continuing the design competition was more likely to lead to a better result in this case.

Your suggestion that OSEG's proposal wouldn't have stood a chance in a right to develop competition, had it gone ahead, is also questionable. This is a complex project, and design alone is only one consideration. The evaluation would have also taken into account financial backing, development and managment expertise, all of which OSEG possesses in spades. And when you consider the fact that no other bidder could offer confirmed OHL and CFL franchises to anchor the facilities, I don't see how other bidders could match that combination. Sure you might have gotten interesting designs, but I don't know who could have offered a similar complete package.

Lastly, you have completely ignored the fact that the City did in fact hold a very successful design competition for the urban park portion of the site. The public had lots of opportunity to participate and did so, just as you suggest. Even though it is only for part of the site, I would have thought that counts for something. Surely there is a basis for seeing it as a reasonable compromise given financial constraints, the history of intertia and all of the other moving parts that needed to be fit into a solution for the site.

[alecz_dad]

Originally Posted by reidjr

I beleave the fol is playing with fire if oseg bid gets kicked out i can see a very big backlash aginst the glebe people won't shop and eat there etc.

I rather suspect that the sort of people who came from outside of the Glebe to hang out or shop will continue to do so.

[alecz_dad]

Originally Posted by phil235

So by that you mean a scale that a bit smaller than the scale of retirement/nursing homes right across Bank St.? The ones that turn their backs to Bank, without a single building entrance facing the traditional mainstreet? Funny how none of these arguments were heard when those were developed not so long ago.

As far as your apparent dislike for glass and steel architecture goes, I would be curious to hear what you think the architectural style of the Glebe is? There is certainly plenty of 60s, 70s and 80s ugly to be found, in addition to older residential construction ranging from turn of the century to the 40s. Quite a range there. In my view, a big part of the Glebe's charm is based on its eclectic collection of architectural styles. Glass and steel only adds to that.

Not liking the style of a building is not a particularly valid reason for opposition, nor are selective comments about the "scale" of a neighbourhood.

Simply because architectural mistakes have been made in the past, does not mean we should continue to perpetuate them. As for the seniors' residences, the former Glebe Centre, now Lord Lansdowne, did formerly address on to Bank Street.

As for the new Glebe Centre long-term care residence next to it, it has always seemed to me to be a missed opportunity that they did not have any ground level retail or other functions to animate that section of Bank Street.

Nonetheless, it would be quite a different matter if what was being proposed for Lansdowne was traditional mainstreet - as the rest of the retail in the Glebe is - because as proposed Lansdowne Live will not really have a mainstreet component. It is about creating a "lifestyle" shopping centre that will draw people deep into the Lansdowne site and away from Bank Street.

[reidjr]

Originally Posted by alecz_dad

I rather suspect that the sort of people who came from outside of the Glebe to hang out or shop will continue to do so.

I would not be to sure about that if the oseg bid is rejected i could see some people boycotting the glebe.

[AuxTown]

Originally Posted by reidjr

I would not be to sure about that if the oseg bid is rejected i could see some people boycotting the glebe.

I have lost a lot of respect for the Glebe businesses in this dispute. The way they have nitpicked in order to use legal minutia as a way to prevent competition and to slow infill development in their backyard really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. You won't see me supporting that neighbourhood again and I know other people feel the same way.

[LeadingEdgeBoomer]

By the way--you can add Old Ottawa South business to the way Glebe businesses have reacted to Lansdowne and OSEG.

It is funny how they all whined about how retail at Lansdowne would hurt their business. They did not seem to take into account that there were a lot of people who wanted this deal to go ahead and would not appreciate it being scuttled or delayed. They did not seem to understand that they risked losing business from these people. As it is, even if the city wins the FOL court challenge, the project has been delayed. Some businesses supported FOL, others remained silent and did not say that they welcomed the new competition at Lansdowne.

Yes some of us will not want to spend a dollar there. If there is any chance that FOL will appeal a court decision should they lose the present case, I don't want to spend any money at a business that may donate that money to fund a FOL appeal.

P.S.---If there are any businesses in the Glebe or OOS who support the OSEG deal, they should let us know---through the media, in advertising, perhaps a window sign. If that happened I would be glad to go to that area more often and spend a few bucks with the supporters, and thank them for that support.

[reidjr]

What i find odd is those aginst oseg say landsdown belongs to all of ottawa yet when people say they support oseg that does not seem to matter.

[S-Man]

P.S.---If there are any businesses in the Glebe or OOS who support the OSEG deal, they should let us know---through the media, in advertising, perhaps a window sign. If that happened I would be glad to go to that area more often and spend a few bucks with the supporters, and thank them for that support.

Hear, hear!

[phil235]

Originally Posted by alecz_dad

Simply because architectural mistakes have been made in the past, does not mean we should continue to perpetuate them. As for the seniors' residences, the former Glebe Centre, now Lord Lansdowne, did formerly address on to Bank Street.

As for the new Glebe Centre long-term care residence next to it, it has always seemed to me to be a missed opportunity that they did not have any ground level retail or other functions to animate that section of Bank Street.

Nonetheless, it would be quite a different matter if what was being proposed for Lansdowne was traditional mainstreet - as the rest of the retail in the Glebe is - because as proposed Lansdowne Live will not really have a mainstreet component. It is about creating a "lifestyle" shopping centre that will draw people deep into the Lansdowne site and away from Bank Street.

The probem is that "scale" is often used as an argument against any kind of intensfication in the neighbourhood. In my view it is far too subjective to add much value to the debate, partcularly when there is a 30,000 seat stadium next door and a tower across the street.

The mistakes of the past are not related to height or scale, but to the street interaction, particularly on a mainstreet. That's why I find it very odd that the neighbourhood was completely silent when the Glebe Centre was built and the Lord Lansdowne shut its Bank St. entrance and fenced itself off from the world. Now we are launching World War III against a plan that tries far harder to integrate into the neighbourhood. Good urban planning can't be the key consideration here.

And contrary to what you are suggesting, the OSEG plan does not repeat the mistakes of the Glebe Centre in any sense. Holmwood will be fronted with 3-story townhouses with several pedestrian-friendly courtyards that increase neighbourhood interaction, just as they should. Bank St. will gain a broad pedestrian promenade, something that is currently missing in the Glebe, with plenty of storefronts and street interaction.

I really believe that the mainstreet will be greatly improved, the neighbourhood will get an injection of life, and the new urban park will be an instant hit. But the continuation of the mainstreet is critical to my mind, and I wouldn't support the plan if I didn't think that it would create that missing mainstreet link between the Glebe and Ottawa South.

[JFFournier]

Originally Posted by LeadingEdgeBoomer

P.S.---If there are any businesses in the Glebe or OOS who support the OSEG deal, they should let us know---through the media, in advertising, perhaps a window sign. If that happened I would be glad to go to that area more often and spend a few bucks with the supporters, and thank them for that support.

The only one I've heard of (which doesn't mean there aren't more, of course) is the bagel place almost directly across the street.

[S-Man]

Wow - a business with actual business sense!
I know that competition can be intimidating, but the isolationist attitude of those opposed to the redevelopment goes against the theory that more people on the street = more chances to lure paying customers into a store. Especially true for a well-respected, affordable and good 'fast' food place like Kettleman's.

One business I used to give my money regularly but won't anymore is Irene's Bar - the owner was one of the remaining three who continued with the court challenge. I liked the bar - ambiance was nice, music was good, prices weren't cheap but not out of this world, either - a unique place that created its own appeal.

I fail to see how (especially given the poor parking/transit situation which would put more pedestrians on Bank) having hundreds of people milling a block and a half away would kill business. People aren't going to decide to go and buy groceries or see a movie instead of stopping in for a drink. You're either going out to do one or the other - they're not interchangeable. Shopping and seeing a movie isn't a worthy substitute for someone with a bill or two in their pocket looking to have a drink, relax and hear some music.
Irene's will keep its regulars, and will likely attract more who never even heard of it before because they never had a reason to go down that stretch of Bank. They can advertise the hell out of the place.
Doing "business" like the way they are puts a bad taste in my mouth, too. Like slashing tires and putting sugar in gas tanks, only though legal action.