What Melnyk said: Since 2014, Senators owner has been mercurial about LeBreton project
Taylor Blewett, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: December 20, 2018
From the moment in late 2014 when Ottawans learned their NHL team would be making a bid to transform LeBreton Flats into a future home for the Ottawa Senators, to the implosion of this plan four years later, team owner Eugene Melnyk has had the city hanging on his every word.
He has been anything but predictable, save for his tendency to make statements that get people talking.
Dec. 15, 2014: “If we’re going to do it, we want to do it right.”
Days after Senators Sports & Entertainment confirmed the group was considering a bid including a new hockey arena in response to the National Capital Commission’s September request for proposals to develop a large swath of LeBreton Flats, Melnyk held off on committing to a proposal submission, but suggested it wasn’t a project his team would enter into lightly.
“We want to be organized, we want to make sure this has been very carefully thought through. This impacts the city in a huge way. It impacts the organization in a huge way. We just need to clearly understand what we’re getting ourselves into, because it is a long-term project and it’s really a game-changer for us.”
He also noted that the Canadian Tire Centre, which opened as The Palladium in 1996, “was not built to last 30 to 40 years.”
“You have to build a new one eventually, I hope in my lifetime. It’s. where do you put it from there?”
Dec. 18, 2015: “This team is mine for life”
Melnyk was unequivocal in his response to the news that DCDLS, the only other group to file a detailed development plan for LeBreton Flats in December 2015, had also included an NHL arena in its vision for the area: Best of luck finding a team.
“Who’s going to play there?” he said. “The team is not for sale and never will be in my lifetime, for sure. … You can’t come into my territory.”
Melnyk, who also owns the Canadian Tire Centre, rejected any suggestion that if RendezVous were to lose the bid for the LeBreton development, the team would move downtown as a tenant in a DCDLS-built arena.
“We need to control the building. Forget the financial part, which is your revenue driver, you have to control things. I don’t want to get permission if I want to do this, nor do I want to pay somebody for that privilege. If we want to do something here, we get it done.”
Jan. 27, 2016: “The total project is going to be a net contributor to the Senators.”
Melnyk made an enticing case to Senators fans for a move downtown, suggesting the new arena’s location would drive an upswing in fan turnout and bring in new revenue streams that could give the Senators an additional $10 million in payroll to play with.
“Imagine if we were able to bring in, and pay for, two power forwards or a forward or a defenceman with an extra $10 million … we can add that (now) and we have cap space, but the team cannot afford it. It’s simple.”
April 28, 2016 : “I know we’re going to deliver everything we said we would.”
Riding high after learning that the NCC had chosen RendezVous LeBreton Group as the preferred bidder in the LeBreton redevelopment competition, Melnyk expressed confidence that the Senators would playing in their new downtown building on the opening night of their 2021-22 hockey season. “You’ll be very proud of this day five years from now and seeing the whole site getting really developed beautifully. You’ll see it pretty quick.”
March 22, 2017: “If it’s Ottawa, it’s got to be downtown.”
In expressing his desire that negotiations with the NCC wrap up by the end of 2017 so they could move on to the approval and building stages of the project, Melnyk emphasized his desire for the Senators to move downtown. When he bought the team in 2003, he said there was nothing he could do about the Canadian Tire Centre’s Kanata location.
“I think there’s only three teams left in the NHL that don’t have a downtown arena, and we’re one of them and it’s tragic that we don’t.”
Dec. 15, 2017: “It wouldn’t be a disaster for us at all if LeBreton didn’t happen.”
With an abrupt about-face in late 2017, Melnyk expressed pessimism about the ability of the NCC and RendezVous LeBreton Group to come to a deal, and suggested LeBreton Flats may not be the best location for a Senators arena. “I don’t trust anything happening our way necessarily,” he cautioned. “I’m not sure downtown is necessarily (the only option).”
April 11, 2018: “It’s a very difficult, much more than I thought, process.”
After renewed optimism following the announcement of an agreement in principle between RendezVous LeBreton Group and the NCC in January 2018, Melnyk hinted all was not well between the involved parties during a town hall with Senators season-ticket holders.
“It’s not the NCC that’s holding it up. They’ve actually been very, very good throughout this whole process. The problems we’re finding there are much more complicated than I can describe to you,” he said, later referencing concerns with development by one of his partners in the area.
Aug. 10, 2018: “We are fully capable of funding our portion of what we need to accomplish.”
After a meeting between Melnyk, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson and RendezVous partner and Trinity executive chair John Ruddy, Melnyk spoke confidently of the team’s ability to finance its part of the project, and the partnership itself. “As a team effort here, everything that is required can get done.”
Nov. 23, 2018: “The relationship sours”
In a $700-million lawsuit filed by Melnyk against Ruddy on Nov. 23, Melnyk claimed the partnership between the two had been soured for two years, and alleges that Trinity had withheld information about its planned development at nearby 900 Albert St., which the lawsuit alleges would destroy the viability of the LeBreton project.
Nov. 28, 2018: “At no time did CSMI or Eugene Melnyk demand the city build an arena.”
In response to Mayor Jim Watson’s claim that the Ottawa Senators had wanted the city to fund the construction of the LeBreton Flats arena, Senators chief operating officer Nicolas Ruszkowski said Watson’s comments were “disappointing and inaccurate.” RendezVous partners explored the topic in discussions at “city hall’s own urging,” he said.
Dec. 18. 2018: “A proposed solution.”
On the same day a $1-billion countersuit was filed by Ruddy against Melnyk, the Senators’ owner proposed that Trinity build and take in all the revenue from the LeBreton arena if it took on the project’s $500-million construction cost. It was a significant departure from the position Melnyk had taken three years ago, when he insisted his team would not play in someone else’s arena.
The following day, the NCC announced the end of its LeBreton partnership with Melnyk and the rest of the RendezVous LeBreton team.
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