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Posted May 28, 2010, 12:21 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 4,171
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Rather than give my opinion, I will let Wayne Scanlan from the Ottawa Citizen do it for me. I love everything he says in this excellent, however biased, article regarding the new Lansdowne plan.
Quote:
Ottawa stadium: a picture’s worth a thousand words
By Wayne Scanlan, Ottawa Citizen May 27, 2010 8:02 PM
OTTAWA — It’s a simple enough exercise.
Take in the design for Frank Clair Stadium, mesh in the fabric of spectacular new plans for Lansdowne Park and then close the eyes to imagine a moonlit night astride the Rideau Canal.
The Ottawa Rough Riders, or whatever they may be called, are threatening to score with the game on the line and — they fumble the ball.
Hey, this isn’t a Hollywood sports movie.
But from the look of the stadium and park designs revealed on Thursday, the Lansdowne site would make a decent movie backdrop.
For now, they’re just pretty pictures, soon to be a model to scale, and they won’t get past that stage without an approving vote from city council late next month. But this stadium creation from the ashes of the crumbled southside stands has enough of the sought-after “wow” factor that it may not matter for a while if Ottawa’s next CFL team is a contender. The honeymoon period should carry the day until the venue has a team worthy of such a facility.
While football and soccer are expected to be the games of choice, a baseball analogy comes to mind with this design: a home run.
With its sleek wooden veil over the new south stands, “nested” seating partly hidden by a sloping berm of “indigenous gardens,” and a rebuilt roof on the north stands (over a refurbished hockey arena), the stadium answers the call for something special, but also functional.
In a 90-minute presentation on Thursday, the architects painstakingly walked us through the plans. Clearly, for the architects, the effort to create a project linking Lansdowne’s 150-year-old past with the needs of a modern nation’s capital was a labour of love.
Mayor Larry O’Brien, who opened the proceedings, professed to be as excited as a child at Christmas.
“One day the door opens and the future walks in,” O’Brien said.
Jeff Hunt, owner of the Ontario Hockey League Ottawa 67’s and the man who will preside over future sports endeavours here, believes the stadium can’t miss.
“Aesthetically, I think it’s gorgeous, and that wooden structure really gives it a unique identity,” Hunt said. “A lot of times, stadiums are kind of cookie cutter. This design . . . really does feel like it’s in a park.”
Along with the new look comes new stadium amenities, improved washrooms, concessions, and, when they talk about putting bums in seats, these are real seats, not benches.
Until now, the Lansdowne experience meant driving to the stadium, fighting traffic and getting out as soon afterward as possible. The new site just might inspire people to arrive early and linger after.
“It’s a destination in and of itself,” Hunt said. “It will make for an enhanced fan experience.”
Leaving the car at home or somewhere else in the city might be part of the new plan.
Water taxi, anyone?
That is one of the suggested means of transport to Lansdowne, via water craft, along the canal to catch a game.
“Getting there might be half the experience,” Hunt says. “You get on a boat, go to Lansdowne, get a bite to eat.”
Council is expected to debate the proposal and vote on it June 28.
If you build it, they will come — the CFL is simply waiting for the stadium OK before upgrading a conditional franchise to a real one for Ottawa, which endured more than 120 years of Rough Riders football, and then a few more as the “Renegades,” before both entities collapsed due to ownership, stadium and franchise problems.
The ownership group of Roger Greenberg, Bill Shenkman, John Ruddy and Hunt hasn’t yet decided if the Rough Riders name, with its mixed bag of baggage, will come back. Hunt has a thought on that.
“What if you had a new name, whatever that might be, but once a year you had a retro game, where you played as the Rough Riders in the traditional Rough Rider jersey?” Hunt said.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders would probably like that idea — one less “Rider” in a nine-team league.
Among those who cheered — screamed, actually — loudest for the Lansdowne unveiling was superfan Alison Comrie.
Comrie says she has 2,200 people on her Facebook page supporting football’s return.
Soccer is also built into the stadium proposal.
John Pugh, owner of the Ottawa Fury Soccer Club, said he envisions a USL Division Two operation here, a step down from the MLS.
Two franchises in need of a good home, with a good home in sight.
Ottawa Citizen
wscanlanthecitizen.canwest.com
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