History Ottawa (Live Nation venue) [47 Rideau St] | U/C - Page 7

OTSkyline · #**121** Posted **Jun 13, 2024, 5:55 PM**

What is this obsession with drop offs? Ottawa is becoming a large(r) city and this location is right downtown in the middle of the action. Do we absolutely need to provide a drop off area right in front of the front doors?

Is it unreasonable to expect most people to take transit, walk or park/get dropped off a few blocks away and walk? Given the type of venue, I dont think the target market here will be 87 year old Granny McPhee who just underwent knee surgery.

DTcrawler · #**122** Posted **Jun 13, 2024, 9:10 PM**

Yeah, you either need to be able to provide a PPUDO area big enough to accommodate lots of vehicles or have strict no-stopping signage. Lots of places are in a weird middle ground and it leads to piles and piles of uber drivers blocking traffic with their 4-ways on waiting for their passenger(s).

Rideau station is literally right across the street - if people need to be picked up or dropped off in a private vehicle they can walk 5-10 min to a more convenient location.

kwoldtimer · #**123** Posted **Jun 13, 2024, 10:13 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

What is this obsession with drop offs? Ottawa is becoming a large(r) city and this location is right downtown in the middle of the action. Do we absolutely need to provide a drop off area right in front of the front doors?

Is it unreasonable to expect most people to take transit, walk or park/get dropped off a few blocks away and walk? Given the type of venue, I dont think the target market here will be 87 year old Granny McPhee who just underwent knee surgery.

Well, where will the limos pull up? And what about the valet parking?

zzptichka · #**124** Posted **Jun 13, 2024, 10:23 PM**

Won't somebody think of the Red Carpet???

kwoldtimer · #**125** Posted **Jun 13, 2024, 10:32 PM**

Is Ottawa going to get "the list"?

rocketphish · #**126** Posted **Jun 13, 2024, 11:52 PM**

New downtown music venue’s potential economic impact pegged at $1.2B, NCC says

David Sali, OBJ
June 12, 2024 4:13 PM ET

Bill Leonard, the NCC’s vice-president of real estate and development, said new tenant Live Nation Canada’s plan to use the building to host a variety of live events will be the “first step” in a much-anticipated campaign to revitalize Ottawa’s downtown core.

A new music and entertainment venue that will soon take over the former Chapters bookstore on Rideau Street is expected to generate more than a billion dollars in economic spinoffs, the National Capital Commission says. Bill Leonard, the NCC’s vice-president of real estate and development, said new tenant Live Nation Canada’s plan to use the building to host a variety of live events will be the “first step” in a much-anticipated campaign to revitalize Ottawa’s downtown core. “It’s something that’s going to be phenomenal for the city,” he told OBJ in an interview on Wednesday afternoon, explaining that the Crown corporation’s forecasts suggest the facility will have an economic impact of as much as $1.2 billion over the term of the lease, which is expected to extend for multiple years. Leonard declined to elaborate on the terms of the agreement with Live Nation, which was announced Wednesday morning. He said the lease should be signed within the next 60 days.

Renovations on the 60,000-square-foot space will likely begin this summer, he added, with completion targeted for late 2025.

The NCC purchased the two-storey building near the corner of Rideau Street and Sussex Drive from a private Quebec company last year for $21.8 million. Chapters occupied the building from 1996 until 2022, when parent company Indigo Books & Music moved the store to a smaller location across the street at the Rideau Centre. Earlier this year, the NCC said it bought the “landmark” Rideau Street property because it is considered part of the “National Interest Land Mass” due to its “prominent location along Confederation Boulevard, and its potential to bring new life to this area of the downtown core.” The NCC owns more than 1,600 properties in Ottawa and Gatineau. Leonard said the former Chapters building was acquired partly because it’s a site of “national interest” near the Parliamentary Precinct. “It’s one of the marquee corners of the city, it’s right smack dab in the ByWard Market, it’s got a view of Parliament,” he explained. “This is a piece of land that we want control of for the next 200 years.”

Still, the move didn’t sit well with some high-profile Ottawans. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Nepean MPP Lisa MacLeod said Wednesday the NCC’s “jurisdictional creep is getting ridiculous.” “It’s good to see they have time to purchase flagship commercial real estate to convert into a music venue for lease to a commercial giant. Totally in its mandate,” MacLeod wrote with evident sarcasm. Leonard brushed off the criticism, saying the NCC has leases with more than 600 tenants ranging from golf courses and ski hills to high-end retailers and office users. “Where it’s located makes it something that we need to accomplish our mandate,” he said of the Rideau Street property.

“This is something that is fundamental to what we do. We manage land that is in the national interest, and we rent it for commercial, residential and institutional purposes.” Meanwhile, Live Nation has been making headlines for its controversial business practices. Last month, the U.S. Justice Department sued the company and its Ticketmaster subsidiary, accusing them of running an illegal monopoly over live events in America and asking a court to break up the system, which the U.S. government claims squelches competition and drives up prices for fans. In addition, Live Nation is investigating a data breach at Ticketmaster, which dominates ticketing for live events in the U.S. In a regulatory filing in late May, Live Nation said "a criminal threat actor'' offered to sell Ticketmaster data on the dark web. Leonard said the NCC is aware of the issues facing Live Nation and believes the company will be a solid partner. The NCC talked to several potential tenants before going with Live Nation, he added, arguing the new 2,000-seat venue will be a magnet for live entertainment fans and enhance the quality of life in the downtown core. “We do our due diligence to ensure that who we’re doing business with is appropriate for what we’re trying to do.”

– With additional reporting from The Canadian Press

https://obj.ca/ncc-pegs-music-venues-economic-impact-at-1-2b/

J.OT13 · #**127** Posted **Oct 28, 2024, 1:29 PM**

Live Nation Canada president has high hopes for new ByWard Market club

"It is a big investment for us, but it feels like the stars aligned. It’s the perfect location,” Ottawa-born Erik Hoffman says.

Lynn Saxberg, Ottawa Citizen
Published Oct 26, 2024

The live-music venue coming to the ByWard Market area in 2025 will be a two-level concert hall with a capacity of 2,000 people, Erik Hoffman, the Ottawa-born president of Live Nation Canada, said during a hometown visit this week.

He described the project as an “overdue space” for Ottawa and the continuation of a model launched in Toronto with History, the 2,500-capacity nightclub that’s the result of a partnership between Live Nation and music superstar Drake.

Like History, the new club will designate the ground-floor space in front of the stage for a general-admission audience (i.e. standing or dancing), but also offer seating on the upper level.

“It’s a model that a lot of music fans really love,” Hoffman said, pointing to its popularity in Europe and the United States. “It’s sort of a soft-seat theatre with the soul of a nightclub. We feel it will be hugely successful here.”

In Ottawa, the new club is a partnership between Live Nation and the National Capital Commission, but it will also be open to independent promoters who don’t work for Live Nation.

“It will be a local venue open to local promoters,” Hoffman said, name dropping Bluesfest’s Mark Monahan and Spectrasonic’s Shawn Scallen as examples of Ottawa promoters whose shows would be welcome.

Construction on the venue is scheduled to start this fall, Hoffman said, with an “ambitious” opening date targeted for late 2025.

For the man who described himself as a music-industry “lifer,” the new venture marks a full-circle moment, he told an early-morning crowd gathered at Ottawa City Hall for Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s monthly breakfast event. The journalist-elected-mayor dusted off his interview skills for a fireside-type chat with the music exec.

When the conversation turned to his start in the industry, Hoffman reminisced about his teenage years as the house sound person at the Pit, a long-gone Rideau Street basement club.

“It’s full circle in that it was one city block from where we’re planning the new project,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman was also a key partner in PRS Concerts, the independent Ottawa concert-promotion company of the early 2000s. He helped design and operate the former Capital Music Hall, a 1,000-capacity Rideau Street venue that lasted a couple of years in the mid-2000s before it was torn down to make way for condo towers.

Hoffman believes it’s the ideal time to launch a new music venture in Ottawa. The live-music industry is a rapidly growing part of the Canadian economy, and Live Nation is on track to rack up another record-setting year.

“Why would we not invest here?” Hoffman said, noting that a spacious club was “quite clearly a segment that’s missing from the market in terms of venues.”

He sees a vibrant downtown economy growing along with a new venue, as well as the development of a downtown arena for the Ottawa Senators.

“It’s a very exciting time,” Hoffman said. “The fact that investment is on the doorstep says to operators like us (that) we’re in it together. I’m also hoping this is the beginning of a kickoff for folks to open new small clubs, too.

“Something’s going on here,” he added. “We see restaurants opening and creativity coming to life in other segments of the business. It is a big investment for us, but it feels like the stars aligned. It’s the perfect location.”

The new venue will occupy the commercial space at Rideau Street and Confederation Boulevard that formerly housed a Chapters bookstore. Empty since 2022, it’s located next to the Rideau Centre and the ByWard Market and easily accessible by public transit.

NCC specifications peg the size at 3,805 square metres of space above ground, with an additional 2,230 square metres of basement space. Live Nation Canada reached a deal to lease the space from the NCC last spring.

As for the city’s role in fostering the music business and nightlife economy, Hoffman said it was off to a good start because different facets of the industry already worked together.

“That’s very unique to Ottawa,” he observed. “There’s a feeling of moving ahead together.”

But he also cautioned the mayor to reduce the red tape and “irritating” bylaws.

“Cities always ask what can we do and there’s funding and all of the things that are obvious answers, like putting money into the arts. But it’s also, ‘Get out of the way.’ Let’s not have a bunch of policy and irritating outdated bylaws get in the way.

“If you really want to be a music city, if you’re actually serious about it, let’s not get hung up on the things that irritate creators, and that’s way too much policy and red tape to do anything. That was traditionally a problem here. I think it’s changing now.

“But that’s what you can do to help. Set the table for it to happen and then watch the creators do what they do.”

https://ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/local-arts/live-nation-canada-president-byward-market-club

Uhuniau · #**128** Posted **Oct 28, 2024, 3:17 PM**

I will squeal like a piggy if they pull off turning this space into a History-class club, especially if they work creatively with the unusual shape of the space.

What's this tingly stupid human sensation I am feeling? Is it actual excitement?

Harley613 · #**129** Posted **Oct 28, 2024, 4:58 PM**

THE PIT!!!

So many memories after I read that mention in the article.

J.OT13 · #**130** Posted **Oct 28, 2024, 6:11 PM**

Hope they restore the red brick face on Rideau and update the George facade (maybe there's red brick under there too, though from 1991 to 1999 it looks like the rear had some significant work done based on GeoOttawa, like the corner cut into an angle).

https://maps.ottawa.ca/geoottawa/

zzptichka · #**131** Posted **Nov 30, 2024, 11:07 PM**

Current situation

BGO · #**132** Posted **Dec 1, 2024, 1:58 PM**

They should build a 27 floors over it!

huntclub · #**133** Posted **Dec 1, 2024, 8:55 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by zzptichka

Current situation

Very excited about this music venue. Really hope they can recreate what toronto did with “History” venue over there. It’s really needed for the Ottawa market.

BlueJay · #**134** Posted **Dec 1, 2024, 11:53 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by huntclub

Very excited about this music venue. Really hope they can recreate what toronto did with “History” venue over there. It’s really needed for the Ottawa market.

This is going to be a game changer for Ottawa's music scene. I've always been a critic of the NCC but they did the right thing here by dealing with Live Nation. This venue will be amazing.

J.OT13 · #**135** Posted **Dec 2, 2024, 7:51 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlueJay

This is going to be a game changer for Ottawa's music scene. I've always been a critic of the NCC but they did the right thing here by dealing with Live Nation. This venue will be amazing.

The NCC has taken a very positive turn over the last decade under Nussbaum and Kristmanson before him. Things like this, the Bistros, the NCC River House, LeBreton (after decades of inaction and false starts) have been moving the City forward while the City has been stalling or regressing (under Sutcliffe particularly).

SL123 · #**136** Posted **Dec 3, 2024, 12:34 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The NCC has taken a very positive turn over the last decade under Nussbaum and Kristmanson before him. Things like this, the Bistros, the NCC River House, LeBreton (after decades of inaction and false starts) have been moving the City forward while the City has been stalling or regressing (under Sutcliffe particularly).

I agree! Frankly all the nice new things in this city lately has been achieved by the NCC to your list I would add the Nepean point and Westoboro beach pavilion although those have not opened yet