GIBBONS: NCC could get LeBreton back on track by revisiting Devcore proposal
Rick Gibbons
Published:
March 18, 2019
So, it appears the National Capital Commission has no intention of abiding by its own process to select a viable plan to develop LeBreton Flats.
Maybe it has lost faith in its own strategy, or maybe it was all a ruse aimed at creating the illusion of a fair and open competition four years ago while the fix was in for the local bidders from the get go.
The RendezVous partnership of Eugene Melnyk and Trinity Developments’ John Ruddy was always seen as the hometown favourites battling against well-moneyed Quebec investors who also had serious designs on owning the Ottawa Senators one day. And they weren’t beyond forcing the issue by proposing an NHL arena as a centrepiece of their development plan, even though they didn’t yet own a team to play there.
Imagine if the skate was on the other foot, so to speak, and the RendezVous bid failed to win the rights to develop LeBreton Flats. Imagine it was then denied a second chance when the alternative bid collapsed. There would be uproar among Senators boosters and calls for changes in NCC leadership.
If it really was a fair competition four years ago, and if the two viable finalists really did meet the criteria, then the NCC had an obligation to turn to the Devcore Canderel Group as soon as it became clear the RendezVous project was headed for the dumpster and couldn’t be salvaged through mediation.
Instead, the NCC ignored its own original process and refused to answer numerous calls and letters from Canderel, which now wants back in the game. Instead it announced a timid new strategy of piecemeal development for the property — with no overarching vision and, at this rate, no real hope of ever becoming a world-class centrepiece in the heart of the city.
The Canderel proposal was a pretty good bid and probably would have been embraced by the NCC were it not for a slightly superior bid by RendezVous. So, why is Canderel now being ignored like its bid was never seriously considered?
It’s too soon to blame any of this on the NCC’s new chief executive, Tobi Nussbaum. But it’s also not too late for him to take the reins early and put the NCC back on track.
Devcore has been waiting for its phone to ring and its letters to be answered by the NCC for weeks now. It’s considering an aggressive legal challenge that could result in the kind of wrangling that would tie up development for years to come.
Devcore president Jean-Pierre Poulin complains of “irregularities” in the process and is frustrated the NCC won’t now return his calls.
“We met all the criteria,” he said in an interview.
“We were a preferred proponent. The NCC asked us to step on the sidelines (after Devcore finished second in the competition) and then didn’t decide to call us back. It’s very disappointing.”
Poulin won’t say why he was invited to join mediation efforts between former RendezVous partners Melnyk and Ruddy after their partnership collapsed. He won’t even hint what was discussed.
It may have been an attempt to get all the rival bidders into the same room to see if a joint alternative proposal could be developed that would salvage the main components of the RendezVous bid and avoid the kind of legal challenges that always flow from the collapse of projects this magnitude.
The NCC does not want to spend the next few years in court. Cases of this sort take years and often millions of dollars to litigate and would push a key piece of LeBreton development back into the deep freeze for a decade or more.
“What Ottawa needs in our estimation is a project that is really going to knocks our socks off,” says Ottawa Board of Trade president Ian Faris.
His board is urging the NCC to revisit the Canderel bid now that the RendezVous bid is dead.
The board fears the NCC is losing momentum for development and needs to get back on track by honouring its original commitment to a process. It could start by answering Canderel’s calls.
With a federal election looming, politicians of all stripe will be anxious to step into the vacuum created by absent leadership by the NCC.
This whole exercise of selecting a major development proposal was designed to keep politics out of the process. On that score, the NCC may be about to fail miserably.
https://ottawasun.com/opinion/column...vcore-proposal