NCC eyeing major new capital landmark on LeBreton Flats
Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: September 11, 2014, Last Updated: September 11, 2014 7:14 PM EDT
The National Capital Commission wants the private sector to come up with some ideas for developing the long-empty lands on LeBreton Flats — anchoring those suggestions with a new “landmark” building of national significance.
Mark Kristmanson, the NCC’s chief executive officer, spoke about the plan during a breakfast address to the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.
Creating a new “signature development” on LeBreton Flats, he told the business audience, is a top priority for the NCC’s board of directors and for the commission’s political minister, Ottawa West-Nepean MP John Baird.
Kristmanson said staff will present a recommendation to the NCC’s board at its meeting next Tuesday to seek proposals “based on a major public institution or an attraction of regional or national significance, supported by a complementary development scheme.”
The news prompted some to take to Twitter to suggest that LeBreton Flats would be an ideal site for a new downtown arena — an idea that Senators Sports & Entertainment, owners of Ottawa’s NHL team and the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata, didn’t reject out of hand.
“We are aware that the LeBreton Flats site is large enough to accommodate a downtown professional sports arena,” the company said in a statement. “Before giving this serious consideration, Senators Sports & Entertainment would need to explore whether this concept is something that the people of Ottawa would desire and support.”
The company said it could not comment further until it has a “full understanding” of the process the NCC will undertake to determine how best to develop the site.
The development, which could include residential, commercial and retail elements, would take place on a large tract of land between Booth Street and Bayview Avenue, some of which is now available for development following the removal of contaminated soil.
In an interview with the Citizen, Kristmanson said the NCC needs to move ahead with development on LeBreton Flats, still largely vacant since the federal government expropriated and demolished homes there as part of a stillborn redevelopment project more than half a century ago.
“The NCC has a kind of ethical debt to the city to get this done,” he said. “It has sat there for a long time.”
While he declined to assign blame for LeBreton’s lengthy tenure as the city’s most valuable vacant lot, he said the property is “under the NCC’s watch. It’s our responsibility, and I really want to see it done.”
Kristmanson said the NCC will take a “non-prescriptive” approach to the new anchor attraction, which would likely be situated in the vicinity of the Canadian War Museum.
“We will look to the private sector to bring to bear all of its creativity and innovation to make this a new landmark in the capital.”
The new building could be a museum or other type of public institution, he said, “with hopefully a national reach.
“This is where we’re looking to the creativity of the private sector. It’s not going to be a government-led or driven process. We’ll really be looking to the market and to the creative minds out there to see what they can come up with.”
Kristmanson cited the “evolution” of the surrounding area — particularly Windmill Development’s plans for the former Domtar lands and Chaudiere Island — as one key reason for a major new building on LeBreton.
“With the Windmill development bringing in about three million square feet, mostly residential, to the north of the site, it makes a lot of sense to bring in some major attraction or institution to balance the War Museum,” he said.
Such a building would also create “an attractive place” for people arriving at the city’s future Pimisi light rail transit station at LeBreton Flats, he said. “It makes a lot of sense to do that rather than just let the whole thing go as a mixed-use development.”
Kristmanson, who called LeBreton Flats “immensely valuable,” said he’s had numerous meetings with private sector developers “to get their advice on how to do this — what was done right in the past, what was done wrong. So we’re going forward on that basis.”
Diane Holmes, the outgoing councillor for Somerset ward, which includes LeBreton Flats, said the most important thing the NCC should do with the LeBreton redevelopment is to break up the land into smaller parcels, each with its own architect and developer.
The condos on the eastern part of LeBreton built by Claridge Homes have “resulted in a development that looks institutional, like a hospital, instead of a mixed-used residential community,” Holmes said.
The NCC is also finalizing designs for some interim improvements to portions of the recently decontaminated lands at Booth and Wellington streets to make them accessible to residents and visitors.
Those designs are expected to receive approval from the NCC board this fall and be implemented by next summer.
Across the street, the NCC has begun constructing the National Holocaust Monument, scheduled to open a year from now.
With files from Joanne Chianello
dbutler@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/ButlerDon
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...lebreton-flats
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