This is the first guest post in our week-long series The Future of Ottawa. In this column, urban affairs blogger Eric Darwin looks at the proposed phase II redevelopment of Lebreton Flats, and whether this project can become another source of heated debate like the redevelopment of Lansdowne. Twitter users: use hashtag #futott if you want to discuss this series on Twitter.
The Lansdowne Park redevelopment scheme was done in a rush to meet the needs of sporting promoters. It increasingly looks like we may see a transformation of LeBreton Flats / Bayview Yards area under similar impetus, this time from the Ottawa Senators.
The Flats is owned by the National Capital Commission (NCC), a federal agency. The adjacent Bayview Yards just to the west is owned by the City. The NCC is asking for proposals for the remaining undeveloped parts of the Flats, while stung by criticism of its first phase which is barely one quarter done.
The Lansdowne redevelopment was a development play in search for a sports venue subsidy; the Senators owners are proposing much the same deal for the Flats. Give us your vacant lands, your prime real estate, and we’ll build it up all nice and as a bonus, the profits will all be reinvested in a marvellous public good, a new arena. (Will profits from developing the old Sens site in Kanata also go towards the new arena?)
It looks just like the way we planned Lansdowne Park. Deja vu all over again.
Everyone thus far is mesmerized by the arena, either in awe (vocally) or horror (silently, thus far). There are a limited number of places on the Flats such a big building could go. The most obvious guess is the west side of Booth Street :
While that is a most obvious location, it doesn’t play well with other development goals. We don’t “need” a new stadium for 20 years, so to redevelop all the sites around it (to earn those profits required to build the stadium) while leaving the stadium site vacant for decades isn’t the greatest urban planning. Nor is an arena dwarfing the War Museum likely to fit the NCC’s federal capital goals.
Much better is to push the stadium west of the Preston Street Extension, allowing the area from there to Booth Street, and along Albert, to be built out first in a more natural expansion of the urban core over 20 years. This site would be serviced by both LeBreton’s Pimisi Station and Bayview Station.
If the Sens owners cannot do a sweet enough deal with the NCC, there is a plan B: as in Bayview Yards, the City owned vacant lands to the west of the OTrain line. This is where the north-south Trillium rail line crosses the east-west Confederation line. The Light Rail Transit (LRT) system will go to Gatineau someday, the only question is when. The Bayview Yards site is not as proximate to the downtown, the walking distance being 20-30 minutes, but is even better serviced by transit and owned by a more cooperative partner: the City.
The City has already approved the Bayview site for a forest of high rises, and is in advanced planning stages for some office buildings as part of its Innovation Centre. It wouldn’t be hard to hand off the whole site to a single developer to do the office stuff, build the condo towers, and then drop in an arena.
The Bayview site isn’t really huge enough to build a lot of stuff to generate those profits that are supposed to support the arena. The NCC has its own mandate which is more likely to favour a new museum over an arena, while the Feds won’t want to set a precedent being seen to fund a sports arena; that support will have to suitably disguised.
So let’s look at a partnership or trade-off of interests and properties.
The Senators property arm gets to build out the NCC Flats from Booth over to Preston, as per a NCC plan, while the City throws in the land at Bayview, and its development rights, including the city as tenant in the new office buildings housing the Innovation Centre.
Expect some planning bones to be thrown to potential critics, in order to create a win-win atmosphere. The sports fans get an arena. Throw in a new library and admin building, built by the developer and leased back by the City. The City gets its educational and high tech kudos, and a nascent transit-oriented showpiece around Bayview Station (err, rename that Bayview Crossing to reflect its new role). The cost of the land contributed can be suitably obscured in complex fine print. The NCC gets to keep the site west of Peston for a new museum.
Look for an arena that can be marketed for conventions too, with its direct link out to the airport (otherwise the airport link will deliver customers to the Gatineau casino). Stir in a few high rise hotels. Throw in a few 20 year leases for “affordable housing”. Blend in some complicated lease backs, development rights, and sole source contracts, and dedicated tax revenues from the surrounding development to support the public areas around the arena, and just like Lansdowne there is the makings of a deal.
Isn’t it amazing what could be accomplished if the parties work together? It could all come together remarkably fast.
Eric Darwin is the founder of the popular blog West Side Action that focuses on urban development.
