https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...ottawa-senators-consider-for-a-new-arena
If not LeBreton Flats, what other central location could the Ottawa Senators consider for a new arena?
JON WILLING Updated: February 28, 2019
OTTAWA CITIZEN
If the Ottawa Senators want to relocate to a central site, and if that site isn’t going to be LeBreton Flats, then the hunt is on for a big chunk of land along the LRT line.
LeBreton Flats isn’t completely out of the question for the Senators after its RendezVous LeBreton partnership with Trinity Developments failed. No one has said team owner Eugene Melnyk wouldn’t be able to participate in a future procurement process by the National Capital Commission. A public appetite to build an arena at LeBreton, and Mayor Jim Watson’s interest in the move, works in the club’s favour.
But there’s no guarantee the Senators would convince the NCC to give them another shot.
So, where’s the best place to put an arena, if not the Flats?
“That’s not an easy question to ask and there would be experts in siting and marketing who would look into what the team’s needs actually are,” said Stephen Willis, the city’s general manager of planning, infrastructure and economic development.
A building the size of an NHL-calibre arena would likely require a land rezoning application for locations in much of the city, he noted.
“There would be significant public process around that. They would have to bring a site, bring a proposal, bring all their studies to demonstrate it,” Willis said. “If that’s what they wish to do, we look forward to having that conversation with them, but it’s very early days.”
Willis said the city’s planning department hasn’t considered where else in the central area, along the LRT system, the Senators could build a new arena.
The LRT part is critical: one of the reasons for spending more than $6 billion on a municipal rail system is to keep people from driving their cars to major destinations.
There has been some work done by the city on locating new sports facilities, although the research is 10 years old and many of the land uses have changed.
When the city was faced with a decision on whether to back a return of the Canadian Football League or a bid by the Senators to pursue a Major League Soccer franchise, it commissioned a study to look at possible sites for a new sports and entertainment facility. A consultant in 2008 identified 23 sites, and of those, only eight could be considered somewhat central, and only six are close to a current or future Confederation Line or Trillium Line station.
As for government-owned land, the city-owned baseball stadium on Coventry Road is connected by a pedestrian bridge to a future LRT station at the Via Rail terminal, but the land probably isn’t large enough to hold a major entertainment facility like an NHL arena. Plus, it could mean kicking out the Can-Am League baseball team, which has the lease until the end of 2024, and tearing down the stadium.
City-owned land near Bayview Station might have been attractive 10 years ago, but the city backed the construction of the Innovation Centre, which is expected to expand on the municipal property. (For this option, the 2008 study also lumped in the Tom Brown Arena property.)
The study highlighted the federal land at the far east end of the Central Experimental Farm, but now a new Ottawa Hospital Civic campus will be constructed there.
As for private property, the study suggested Lincoln Fields mall, which will have an LRT stop after the Stage 2 construction, but the mall owner, RioCan, is already pursuing a redevelopment.
The City Centre complex and the old Plouffe Park federal warehouse land, between Somerset Street and Gladstone Avenue, were raised as possibilities in 2008, but much of the Plouffe Park land has been scooped up by Ottawa Community Housing. City Centre has been eyed for future high-rise development.
In spitballing other possibilities, the redevelopment vision for the 49-acre Tunney’s Pasture land closely resembles the NCC’s vision for LeBreton Flats. Both contemplate a new mixed-use community near an LRT station. There’s already a redevelopment blueprint for Tunney’s Pasture in the form of a master plan approved in 2014. It has been a long-term redevelopment plan, though, since the campus is still very much a federal employment node.
There are other large chunks of federal land along the east-west LRT route through the central area that might hold potential.
There are 38 hectares of city and NCC-owned land available around Hurdman Station, and the city has sketched out a transit-orientated development plan for the property, but one downside is it’s a bit secluded. Plus, some of the land is a former landfill, so there could be costly soil remediation required.
At the easternmost part of the central area, the feds own land where St. Laurent Boulevard meets Highway 417. Coun. Jean Cloutier wants the community to be involved in the planning process for any future development on the property.
Of course, any land would come with a price and the federal and municipal governments, just like the private sector, would likely want market value. And that’s before the cost of an arena and not accounting for complementary developments, like restaurants and other mixed-use buildings, requiring more land.
This is why the LeBreton Flats site has seemed so perfect for both the Senators and the landowner. The Senators would have a very central location with room to create complementary attractions, while the landowner — the NCC, on behalf of Canadian taxpayers — wants to see the urban wasteland transformed into a mixed-use community anchored by a major facility.
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