City held closed-door talks with mall owner about LRT station move
Agreement prevents Cadillac Fairview from revealing nature of the discussions
By Joanne Chianello, The Ottawa Citizen April 8, 2012
City council debates over where LRT stations should be placed continues.Photograph by: Mike Carroccetto , The Ottawa CitizenThe City of Ottawa was in closed-door talks with the owners of the Rideau Centre before deciding to move the planned location of what was to be an iconic light-rail station at Confederation Square to the east side of the shopping centre.
According to Ivan Boulva, the vice-president of development for Cadillac Fairview, which owns the Rideau Centre, he signed a confidentiality agreement at the request of City of Ottawa officials, promising not to talk about any discussions between Cadillac Fairview and the city about moving the LRT station.
When asked what kind of dialogue had occurred between the real estate company and the city about shifting the future Rideau Station to the east side of the downtown mall, Boulva said: “I signed an agreement by which I cannot speak about this. Because there are, as you know, some people that are bidding, and pricing, and what have you. And I was asked by the LRT people not to discuss this with anyone and keep it very confidential.”
Although Boulva would not divulge any details about what, if any, arrangement his company arrived at with the city about moving the station, he did say he signed the confidentiality agreement “before Christmas.”
The surprise announcement that the Rideau Station was to be moved to the east side of the shopping centre — the site of the mall’s planned expansion — was made public at the end of February.
In an interview earlier this year, deputy city manager Nancy Schepers, who is in charge of the light-rail project, said that the city was in ongoing discussions with the Rideau Centre owners. That makes sense: both the original plan for the Rideau station and the new locale had the potential for the connections into the shopping mall.
But if the talks between the city and the shopping mall owners were routine, ongoing discussions, why the secrecy?
City media spokesman Michael FitzPatrick wrote in an email that “the city continues to negotiate with Cadillac Fairview on station entrance opportunities within the Rideau Centre, including the future Rideau Centre expansion.”
As for the confidentiality agreement, FitzPatrick emailed that they are “standard practice. The city is in the midst of negotiating entrance locations at several LRT stations. These negotiations might be compromised if details of any one negotiation were to be made public.”
City officials have said that they’ve had trouble getting private corporations interested in paying to connect to the LRT system, although FitzPatrick confirmed the city “currently has four non-disclosure agreements with landowners along the alignment while negotiations continue on possible station entrance locations.”
So far, it’s not clear what kind of talks took place between city officials and the shopping centre owners before the Rideau Station was moved, as both city and Cadillac Fairview officials say they are bound by the non-disclosure agreements not to discuss details of station entrances.
That lack of transparency raises the question of whether Cadillac Fairview provided any incentive for the station’s relocation.
The city’s original plans for the $2.1-billion, 13-station light-rail project showed the future Rideau Station under the Rideau Canal, where it would have featured exits near the NAC and the west side of the Rideau Centre.
The station once planned for Confederation Square was to be the centrepiece of the new rail system and would have provided, according to a 2010 city staff report, “views to the National War Memorial, Parliament Hill, Château Laurier and Government Conference Centre, providing for an iconic arrival experience.”
The city had worked on a design of the station with its federal counterparts — primarily the National Capital Commission — for almost two years. But near the end of January, the NCC was officially informed by the city that the station was being moved. The commission had heard rumblings of the possibility of a shift earlier that month, but had otherwise had no previous indication from the city that the station would be moved.
Last summer, when council approved a realigned and shallower downtown tunnel, elected officials asked staff to examine, among other things, the possibility of making the Rideau Station shallower too. What city staff came back with, six months later and after no public consultations, was a plan to move the station. The new location will allow the station to be five metres shallower than the original site.
Mayor Jim Watson has said that the move will help to keep the project within the $2.1-billion budget, although it’s so far been impossible to obtain any actual numbers on how much money could be saved by moving the station.
City staff have always contended that the move was made primarily because of ridership, a rationale they re-iterated in response to questions about the confidentiality agreement with Cadillac Fairview. City officials say the station near the Rideau Centre will serve an additional 6,000 residents in the Sandy Hill, Lowertown and ByWard Market neighbourhoods.
The move of the station has attracted criticism from various quarters in the city, from those who say that the Downtown East and Rideau stations will now be too far apart to those who believe that, as the nation’s capital, we should have a station at one of the city’s more recognizable intersections.
In late March, the city was offered a last-minute $2-million donation by the Gillin family, owners of the Lord Elgin Hotel, in hopes of either moving Rideau Station back to Confederation Square, or even as a donation toward an additional station. According to Watson, an additional station would cost at least $40 million and, even if the city had the money, he’s adamant he wouldn’t support the extra stop.
But in 11th hour negotiations with the mayor’s chief of staff and other officials, the Gillins agreed to instead put the money toward a pedestrian connection from the Downtown East station, currently planned for Queen Street near the World Exchange Plaza. In addition, city staff are now looking at whether Downtown East can be nudged further east, closer to Metcalfe Street.
jchianello@ottawacitizen.com
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