LeBreton Flats 2.0 (RendezVous LeBreton) | Cancelled

[Acajack]

Well, just thinking.

The last time my family went to Syracuse we tried a whole bunch of things: go karting, Wonderworks?, aerial rope walk and climb… stuff like that.

Of course we were mainly there for the shopping. Not sure we would have gone to Syracuse just for those recreational activities.

[BlueJay]

CTV confirms Devcore wants to buy the Sens. Seems a little Jim Balsillie ish.

http://www.tsn.ca/report-devcore-hop...n-bid-1.431824

[rocketphish]

Majority of LeBreton project equity comes from local investors, DCDLS Group says

Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: February 1, 2016 | Last Updated: February 1, 2016 11:14 PM EST

Despite the high-profile involvement of two Montreal billionaires, more than half the equity interest in the Devcore Canderel DLS Group’s proposed redevelopment of LeBreton Flats will come from three partners from the Ottawa area.

Gatineau-based Devcore, William Sinclair, co-founder and former president of JDS Uniphase, and the Mierins family, which owns and operates eight car dealerships in the Ottawa area, are bankrolling “slightly over half” of the project, Sinclair said in an interview.

The team’s three partners from Montreal – Canderel Group, André Desmarais, co-CEO of Power Corp., and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté – have less than half of the project’s equity interest, said Lisa Mierins, who manages Mierins Automotive Group with her brother, Arnie.

The revelation counters a widespread impression that the DCDLS Group is dominated by outside interests.

Sinclair, a mild-mannered man who usually avoids the spotlight, found that misperception “a little bit annoying.” For Lisa Mierens, it was “disappointing, because it was not true.”

Not that the Ottawa partners see anything wrong with the involvement of the wealthy Montrealers.

“These are world-class businessmen that have seen and travelled and worked in different environments and cities throughout the world,” said Arnie Mierins. “If anything, I would look at it as a positive, something we can embrace, having this type of knowledge brought into Ottawa.”

(By comparison, the “vast majority” of the development firms in the competing RendezVous LeBreton Group are from Ottawa, said project manager Graham Bird. “I’d say 90-plus per cent are from here, bringing their equity and business prowess to it.”

They include the two master developers, Senators Sports & Entertainment and Trinity Developments, and component developers Windmill, Brigil, Mattamy Homes, Morley Hoppner and the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corp.)

Sinclair – who played a previously undisclosed role in forging the DCDLS team – became involved after he was approached by Canderel, one of the original proponents along with Devcore. The two companies were looking for partners for the LeBreton project.

Sinclair had a business and personal relationship with Canderel’s chairman and CEO, Jonathan Wener, with whom he’s gone fishing on several occasions.

Sinclair was immediately interested. “This is essentially a win-win project,” he said. “This can be a huge draw, a huge benefit to Ottawa. And it’s a potentially good investment.”

He subsequently recruited other team members, including Desmarais, Laliberté and the Mierins family, who he approached last June.

“He knew how passionate we were about Ottawa,” Lisa Mierins said. “We had a meeting of our family and we decided that, of course, we’d love to be a part of something like this.”

Through their auto dealerships, the Mierins family has been active in Ottawa since 1957, said Arnie Mierins. “This was something we felt very strongly about. There was that element of giving back to the community, but also in growing Ottawa a little bit.”

Sinclair, who has no real estate development background, said his role is largely to provide equity. At team meetings, he said, “I try to bring up the Ottawa perspective if it does tend to drift off a little bit.”

Equity investment is also the Mierins family’s main contribution, though the family is keen on the project’s proposed automotive museum. “That’s interesting for us, to have that come to fruition in Ottawa,” Lisa Mierins said. “That would be an amazing thing.”

The role of the two Montreal billionaires, said Sinclair, is both equity and expertise. “We’re trying to build something for everybody down there, and who knows more about entertainment than Guy Laliberté?”

If the National Capital Commission can’t find something it likes in the DCDLS or RendezVous LeBreton proposals, Sinclair said, that would be a “terrible outcome. It’s just going to sit there as wasteland again for another decade or 20 years.”

“We’ve addressed all of the issues that (the NCC) asked us to address,” said Lisa Mierins. “I’m confident one of the proposals will be picked, and we hope it’s ours.”

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[phil235]

Originally Posted by Radster

All good points, but I think what you missed, and what the people supporting the Devcore plan are trying to say is that the Devcore plan would help increase tourism in Ottawa, make people stay a day longer to check out one more museum, skydive, or visit the aquarium. Whereas the RV plan, with the main attraction being the arena, will NOT increase tourism in Ottawa. The sports tourists who are already travelling to attend games will continue to do so, basically, it will be status quo.

As for the standard attractions like the parliament, supreme court, gallery and museums, lets get real here. You were a kid before, or maybe you have kids. While some kids might be fully satisfied with historical stuff like parliament, supreme court and maybe 1-2 museums, MOST kids want something exciting mixed in and will coax the parents to go to an aquarium, to go see a car museum, skydiving, etc. RV doesn't have that.

You have to look at the full spectrum of tourists, all demographics, from everywhere. Not just the Torontonians, Montrealers who drive here for a weekend. But the Americans who come up here, or Europeans, Asians etc.

Overall, when it comes to tourism for all over in all demographics, RV proposal will result in the status quo for Ottawa tourism (arena downtown will not result in more tourists than having the arena in Kanata). But the Devcore proposal will increase tourism (due to all the extra attractions). Its just logic.

You got me. I both was a kid and have kids of my own.

Fair point about the spectrum of tourists - I have questions about the drawing power of some of those attractions, but I do think that they will help keep people here, and maybe convince them to come back.

I don't have any fancy statistics to support this, but I do think that a downtown arena will do more for tourism than the current situation in Kanata. Yes, hard core fans will make the trek, but casual fans will be much more likely to stick around to see a game if they can walk from their hotel.

When I lived in Toronto, I did a trip to see the Habs play in Montreal and the Sens play here. Needless to say, we stayed in downtown Montreal, then popped into Ottawa to see a game on the way back. We would have been much more inclined to spend the night here if it didn't mean staying at the Holiday Inn Kanata and eating in the Centrum. Arena location definitely had an impact on the amount of time we spent here.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Jamaican-Phoenix

Ottawa has to play to its strengths, and those strengths are: overabundance of nature, the rivers and canal, and - unlike many other western countries - significant indigenous cultures and history.

With the exception of the canal, pretty well every other major city in Canada has those things: rivers (or a harbour) and an indigenous history to draw on as well. And heck, a few of them even have canals, too!

I have never been overly impressed with the canal. It's nice and all, but... a little too nice. The few weeks it's frozen it's fun - and the addition of the wayfinding signs is awesome - but other than boating on it, if you are wealthy enough to own a boat, it's pretty sterile.

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

With the exception of the canal, pretty well every other major city in Canada has those things: rivers (or a harbour) and an indigenous history to draw on as well. And heck, a few of them even have canals, too!

Only Vancouver and the Lower Mainland comes to mind as having some kind of involvement and association with its indigenous population. "Indigenous cultural activities" aren't exactly the first things that comes to mind when people think about Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Niagara Falls, Quebec City, or even Vancouver.

Aside from that, you're missing the main point which is that these are our features that we need to emphasize, develop, and draw upon. Let's work with our geography and history rather than trying to run away from it.

I have never been overly impressed with the canal. It's nice and all, but... a little too nice. The few weeks it's frozen it's fun - and the addition of the wayfinding signs is awesome - but other than boating on it, if you are wealthy enough to own a boat, it's pretty sterile.

Yeah, that's because people are stupid and think something must be pristine and preserved for sight lines via car ride. If that part of Lansdowne had succeeded where the company wanted to build a funky bridge to an artificial island that features docks, kayaking, and maybe a foodstand or two, that would have been a start. Instead, the NCC killed it because "OMG WE CAN'T TOUCH UNESCO HERITAGE SITE!"

Thankfully, it seems that some people are trying new things, which is why we've seen those huts and artificial beaches pop up along the shore line. It's not going to change unless we force it to change and, for the sake of our city, it should be changed.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Jamaican-Phoenix

Only Vancouver and the Lower Mainland comes to mind as having some kind of involvement and association with its indigenous population. "Indigenous cultural activities" aren't exactly the first things that comes to mind when people think about Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Niagara Falls, Quebec City, or even Vancouver.

I don't see Ottawa as being any better than any other city for highlighting its aboriginal connections. It is certainly not as good as Vancouver, where West Coast/Pacific Northwest iconography is all over the place, or Prairie cities, where the Aboriginal presence is much more visible.

[acottawa]

I get a sense that there might be a difference between what locals think tourists like and what tourists actually like.

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Attractio...TTRACTION_LIST

Tourists seem to like history and scenery. Locals like to trash talk history and scenery.

Also interesting that CTC with its crappy location still scores higher than local favourites like the Glebe, Lansdowne, the Rideau Centre and the Experimental Farm.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

I don't see Ottawa as being any better than any other city for highlighting its aboriginal connections. It is certainly not as good as Vancouver, where West Coast/Pacific Northwest iconography is all over the place, or Prairie cities, where the Aboriginal presence is much more visible.

Yeah, I was kind of puzzled by this statement.

This is in Quebec City BTW:

http://tourismewendake.ca/fr/accueil/

[Radster]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I get a sense that there might be a difference between what locals think tourists like and what tourists actually like.

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Attractio...TTRACTION_LIST

Tourists seem to like history and scenery. Locals like to trash talk history and scenery.

Also interesting that CTC with its crappy location still scores higher than local favourites like the Glebe, Lansdowne, the Rideau Centre and the Experimental Farm.

No one is trash talking. Just pointing out that its all that we have in Ottawa for tourists. This is why the top 10 or 20 on Tripadvisor for Ottawa is museums, parliament, parkway, waterfalls, monuments etc. Ottawa is very saturated with those types of places for tourists, and that's our strength, and rightly so, being the capital of this great country. Moving forward, Devcore's bid would change that situation, by adding some new attractions which we don't have in Ottawa yet. Think of that family with kids. Will the kids look back at their road trip's stop on Ottawa in awe about how amazing the parliament was, or the canal or the war monument or the scenery? I doubt it! Now, add a Ripleys aquarium, and the kids will probably remember that visit! As for a bigger one in Toronto, fine, but who cares? Do you really think that people will visit both and say, ohhh, the Ottawa one sucked in comparison. No, they will visit one of the two. So that argument, whoever made it, is irrelevant.

Is there a tourist card offering in Ottawa like in many other cities? I don't think so. But add the Devcore attractions to whats already on the attraction list in Ottawa, and suddenly the idea of a 1,2 or 3 day tourist card for Ottawa becomes feasible.

[Boxster]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I get a sense that there might be a difference between what locals think tourists like and what tourists actually like.

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Attractio...TTRACTION_LIST

Tourists seem to like history and scenery. Locals like to trash talk history and scenery.

Also interesting that CTC with its crappy location still scores higher than local favourites like the Glebe, Lansdowne, the Rideau Centre and the Experimental Farm.

Kind of ironic that the Canadian Museum of History is not listed because it is across the river. Ottawa tourism brochures do mention it. It's only the most visited museum in Canada.

They also list Winterlude as "Winterlude Ottawa" which is not appropriate given the activities in Jacques-Cartier Park.

[rocketphish]

Covering LeBreton Flats rail line wouldn't cost much, Senators group says

David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: February 2, 2016 | Last Updated: February 2, 2016 11:11 AM EST



Covering about a kilometre of light-rail line through LeBreton Flats is a crucial part of the Ottawa Senators’ proposal for the property and can be done for only about $25 million, says one of the group’s top planners.

“Everybody’s very comfortable with it. Certainly final detailing and actual construction would require us to be very careful so that we don’t interrupt the LRT schedule,” says Graham Bird, who has overseen the construction of the Ottawa Convention Centre, Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre and Lansdowne Park, among other major projects.

He’s part of the team working on “IllumiNation LeBreton,” the proposal led by Eugene Melnyk and the Ottawa Senators organization that is one of two competing plans for LeBreton Flats being considered by the National Capital Commission.

The way it’s being built as part of the first phase of Ottawa’s LRT plans, the line will be fenced off at the Flats to keep people off the tracks. Once LeBreton is built up, the line will need multiple overpasses and crossings to keep it from being a barrier like the Transitway trench.

Covering it entirely would, in the Senators’ proposal, make room for a pedestrian plaza with gardens and trees overlooking the LeBreton aqueduct. Storefronts — coffee shops, that kind of thing — would be below, facing the aqueduct and with their backs to the enclosed rail line.

In the renderings it looks both prettier and more functional than the version presented in the competing “Canadensis” plan from consortium DCDLS Group. DCDLS would add one lovely curving wooden footbridge but otherwise leaves the rail line pretty much as it is, letting the stations at Booth Street and Bayview do most of the work of getting people across it. This is one of the few areas where the Senators’ proposal is grander than their competitor’s.

“We’ve been very, very focused on all the 21st-century thinking and accessibility is a huge part of the puzzle with this plan,” Bird says. A lot of stairs and climbing up and down won’t do.

He’s also personally driven by the story of Sarah Stott — a friend of his daughter’s, he says — the Ottawa woman who lost her legs to a train in Montreal as she took a shortcut home from work in 2014.

“While that was going on, we were doing this (planning) and we thought, ‘Dammit, that can’t be our downtown,'” Bird says.

On the face of it, $25 million — which is worked into the IllumiNation LeBreton budget — is an astoundingly low estimate.

You need ventilation, lights, drainage for water that might get in — all things a surface line pretty much lets the great outdoors take care of. Safety demands fire suppression and emergency access.

When the city was battling the National Capital Commission over running its LRT line along the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway, it estimated the difference in price between a line on the surface and one fully buried under a berm at $300 million — for about 1.2 kilometres of track, almost exactly the length we’re talking about at LeBreton Flats.

But the conditions aren’t the same, Bird says. For one thing, the IllumiNation plan includes a parking garage along part of the track, meaning there’d be construction there anyway. The group’s primary construction company, PCL Constructors, has done this before and the idea has, in broad terms, been found acceptable in consultations with the National Capital Commission and the city.

“If we build significant retaining walls on both sides of the train, with appropriate setbacks on either side of the corridor, you can came back and put a top on it, essentially,” Bird says. “There’s been a lot of effort by our technical group to make sure that it’s up to standard.”

Carleton University built a garage over the O-Train line that runs through its campus a couple of years ago. It’s a single large building resting on big steel beams laid across the train trench. It still required the city to close the O-Train on weekends so that round-the-clock construction work could be done without the risk of debris falling on the tracks, and took months longer than it was supposed to.

Wouldn’t happen with the LeBreton tracks, Bird says. Couldn’t happen. “Closing the line right after it opens is not a thing I think anybody would find acceptable.”

The city refused to talk about the proposal.

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[Acajack]

Tourist attractions of the type Ottawa seems to be missing are, contrary to popular belief, often as much or more for the locals than they are for tourists.

Knowing this, I'd say if there is an attraction that Ottawa is missing that would benefit the locals in addition to the tourists, it's probably some type of amusement park.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Boxster

Kind of ironic that the Canadian Museum of History is not listed because it is across the river. Ottawa tourism brochures do mention it. It's only the most visited museum in Canada.

They also list Winterlude as "Winterlude Ottawa" which is not appropriate given the activities in Jacques-Cartier Park.

Gatineau and Outaouais Tourism also list stuff in Ottawa in all of their tourist guides and materials, like Parliament, the Rideau Canal, the Byward Market...

[Boxster]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Tourist attractions of the type Ottawa seems to be missing are, contrary to popular belief, often as much or more for the locals than they are for tourists.

Knowing this, I'd say if there is an attraction that Ottawa is missing that would benefit the locals in addition to the tourists, it's probably some type of amusement park.

Right you are! Montreal and Toronto have theirs downtown close to the water which is great. Where could we put ours?

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Radster

No one is trash talking. Just pointing out that its all that we have in Ottawa for tourists. This is why the top 10 or 20 on Tripadvisor for Ottawa is museums, parliament, parkway, waterfalls, monuments etc. Ottawa is very saturated with those types of places for tourists, and that's our strength, and rightly so, being the capital of this great country. Moving forward, Devcore's bid would change that situation, by adding some new attractions which we don't have in Ottawa yet. Think of that family with kids. Will the kids look back at their road trip's stop on Ottawa in awe about how amazing the parliament was, or the canal or the war monument or the scenery? I doubt it! Now, add a Ripleys aquarium, and the kids will probably remember that visit! As for a bigger one in Toronto, fine, but who cares? Do you really think that people will visit both and say, ohhh, the Ottawa one sucked in comparison. No, they will visit one of the two. So that argument, whoever made it, is irrelevant.

Is there a tourist card offering in Ottawa like in many other cities? I don't think so. But add the Devcore attractions to whats already on the attraction list in Ottawa, and suddenly the idea of a 1,2 or 3 day tourist card for Ottawa becomes feasible.

Parents bringing their kids to Ottawa are primarily interested in teaching them something about Canada (same reason why families go to Washington). If they want to take their kids to fun attractions there is no way Ottawa is going to be competitive with Toronto (better Ripley's, Toronto Zoo, Canada's Wonderland, CN Tower, Blue Jays, Raptors, Hockey Hall of Fame, CNE) even with the addition of one or two kid-friendly attractions (hard to see the car dealer's pavilion, the planetarium, the news museum, the so-called "botanical garden" or the beer museum being particularly kid-friendly).

It would certainly be nice to have more family-friendly attractions in Ottawa and hopefully the city's economic development people welcome Ripley's or the windtunnel company with open arms if they want to set up shop in Ottawa (and the fact that they haven't makes me a little suspicious).

But I don't think one or two kid friendly attractions worth the other problems that come with devcore (lifeless area for much of the year, probable loss of an attraction bringing tens of thousands of people into the core every week).

[rocketphish]

Here's what the next week of the LeBreton blitz will look like

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: February 1, 2016 | Last Updated: February 1, 2016 11:15 PM EST

The two LeBreton Flats bid teams have less than a week to win the hearts of Canadians before silence once again falls over the design competition.

The DCDLS Group and the RendezVous LeBreton Group can take advantage of a previously unanticipated opportunity to maximize the exposure of their multibillion-dollar blueprints.

The National Capital Commission’s original plan was to reinstate the gag order last week, but the bid teams learned before the public consultations that they could communicate openly about their proposals until Feb. 8.

At midnight that day, the NCC will shut down its online questionnaire and officials with DCDLS and RendezVous can relax because there will be no one left to lobby. Speaking to anyone about their proposals will be a major faux pas under the NCC’s rules.

Any land-use hobbyists picking apart the proposed designs should consider downloading everything from the websites of DCDLS, RendezVous and the NCC right now. The non-disclosure rules of the development competition will be reapplied once the questionnaire deadline arrives.

In fact, the gag order will be in force until the federal cabinet signs off on a vision for LeBreton Flats, and that might not come until late 2016 or early 2017.

While at least one of the bid teams has hired a municipal lobbyist, more time could be spent reaching out to the NCC’s political masters on Parliament Hill.

That’s why this week is critical for DCDLS and RendezVous when it comes to public relations. It’s their last chance to get politicians and regular folks excited about their bids. The public has already seen additional information released, such as brand partnerships, transit plans and financial schemes, that wasn’t available in the consultations at the Canadian War Museum.

Public opinion counts in the battle for LeBreton Flats.

According to NCC spokesman Nicholas Galletti, responses from the questionnaire will be plugged into a report to the evaluation committee. More than 3,800 questionnaires have been filled out as of Monday, and the NCC is encouraging as many people as possible to complete the survey until Feb. 8.

The City of Ottawa will have a chance to weigh in as a technical subject matter expert giving advice to the evaluation committee. The NCC has also committed to recruiting someone from the private sector or academia to advise the committee.

The committee will spend the rest of February poring over the proposals, and if all goes according to schedule, the NCC’s board of directors will receive a recommendation in March. The recommendation will say which proposal, if any, should continue to the negotiation process through the summer and fall.

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[eemy]

Doesn't the Calypso waterpark kind of satisfy part of that kid-themed attraction, even if it's way out in the outskirts? And most of the museums do a good job of having kids-oriented material.

[mykl]

Originally Posted by ars

Just to play devil's advocate, is there any specific reason why any of those attractions, that Devcore has proposed, need to be at Lebreton?

Someone give this person a medal!

[mykl]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Why not? I can tell you why. It is last available large tract of land near downtown, which is close to centre of Ottawa's tourist trade. You are certainly are not going to put an Aquarium in Orleans.

As it stands, the War Museum is very isolated. That alone is a very compelling reason to have other attractions nearby. It is exactly the same reason why car dealers, and furniture stores tend to locate close together. You are making it convenient for tourists, or car buyers or furniture buyers, all of whom tend to want to go to more than one place.

WRONG. Where is Canada's biggest tourist destination? Wonderland. In the middle of fucking nowhere. (Well, now its in the middle of suburbia). People will gladly go wherever the fuck they have to in order to do the tourist things they want to do. Its about promotion and hype, not location. If tourists only cared about location, Wonderland would have been built under the CN Tower.

As for the concept of "you'd rather go to the city with 10 churches to see 10 churches" well, I'm a super cool young guy who travels and no, I'd go to a city with 10 churches and only visit the best one. Then I'd go to one museum. I'd have done my research beforehand, because technology is a thing. I'd see that in the vicinity I have the options of the national war museum, some car thing, and some beer thing. I'm going to pick the best one. I only care about beer enough to drink it (and even then, I'd prefer a whiskey museum) so I'm not going there, and cars are the devil for an urbanist visiting a walkable new development, so I'm going to choose the war museum that is steeped in important history for Canada and the world.