The Official Lansdowne Park Conservancy Thread

[phil235]

Originally Posted by LeadingEdgeBoomer

If Chiarelli is correct--the fact that there is a court case pending does not automatically stop the partnership from commencing construction. They have agreed to delay it for whatever reason.

However, if the city wins this case I doubt they will wait around for an appeal to be launched. (IF FOL has any money left to launch an appeal).I wonder if a backroom deal was made that the city would not commence construction, if FOL agreed not to appeal, if they lose the case.

IMHO. the odds of winning the case are strongly in the city's favour.

The City would only be prevented from proceeding if there was an injunction in place, which there is not. Of course, there is some risk going ahead when someone is trying to have the deal rescinded, which probably played into their thinking.

I doubt that there is any kind of backroom deal in place - I think the only thing preventing the Friends from appealing would be a lack of money.

I agree that it is pretty unlikely that a court is going to force the City to start all over. There is a possibility that it will have its knuckles rapped for some element that was lacking in the process, but I think a court will be very unlikely to order a remedy that would overturn the entire series of votes by council. I also think that it is even more unlikely that the Friends will have any luck proving that the City deliberately misled citizens or acted in bad faith. Those claims are purely for promoting their cause.

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The Friends of Lansdowne are potentially going to cost the city and taxpayers millions in legal fees and lost opportunities.

I wasn't aware that the Friends of Landsdowne have any friends other than the various name of the week that appears on this forum spouting out the same stuff .

[lpc]

Common misinterpretation of the City issuing an RFP is that you start over from scratch.

The outline for the park has been clearly defined by Council:

A 24,000 seat stadium expandable to 45,000 on a temporary basis for large events.
A Renovation to the Arena and retail components and access points for the North Stands
A Green Space
A Revenue/Retail Model
A Management/Governance Model
A completion time of 30 months.

All that has to be determined is Best and Final Offer through RFP for supplier.

As previously mentioned that is a component of Section 25 of the Procurement By-Law.

An RFP appears inevitable so better sooner than later and respects the Direction of the Executive (Council).

[lpc]

Example of larger RFP:

Husky Stadium - University of Washington
$300M project

RFP release date July 17, 2008
RFP all bids in date September 4, 2008
RFP decision October 9, 2008
Construction Start December 1, 2008
Stadium completion date August 1, 2011

Total RFP time 83 days from release to winner chosen.
Total Construction time 33 months.
Stadium seating capacity 72,000


Larger stadium (factor of 3)
Larger value (factor of 3)
RFP completed in under 90 days.

[michaelae]

a pure guess on why the city "agreed" to delay: they know very well a stop-work motion would go through "in minutes" if they proceeded at this point.
i doubt there's any backroom deal and i doubt the city is being nice or whatever. the city is playing hardball (and are losing each motion so far).
i think the city could have defused the situation by dialogue etc but now have risked resetting it all back to ground zero with possible impacts as you are all saying, although i'll hazard a guess that it'll be delayed to late year at the very least even if the city "wins".

[phil235]

Originally Posted by michaelae

a pure guess on why the city "agreed" to delay: they know very well a stop-work motion would go through "in minutes" if they proceeded at this point.
i doubt there's any backroom deal and i doubt the city is being nice or whatever. the city is playing hardball (and are losing each motion so far).
i think the city could have defused the situation by dialogue etc but now have risked resetting it all back to ground zero with possible impacts as you are all saying, although i'll hazard a guess that it'll be delayed to late year at the very least even if the city "wins".

An injunction definitely would not have gone through "in minutes". Injunctive relief is subject to a very rigourous legal test and is by no means automatic. In addition, a motion for injunction tends to be extremely expensive. By not forcing the Friends to obtain an injunction, the City in fact saved them a lot of money.

I also take issue with the suggestion that dialogue would have defused the situation. The reality is that there are many, many opinions on the best way to handle Lansdowne, even amongst the Friends. If the consultations held by the community association are any indication, there is no middle ground where everyone can be happy. If you are opposed to commercial development, there is nothing the City can do by way of dialogue that will get you to agree with a plan that includes development. Same goes for the stadium.

The current plan is pretty much as close to a compromise as you are likely to get.

By the way Michaelae, I note that you are very selective in the posts that you choose to respond to. Not a word in response to the comments on the market's tourist potential, propensity to be daytime only, or the sea of surface parking involved. If the Conservancy wants to sell its vision, it has to answer the same types of questions that it is putting to the City.

[lpc]

I would request you to refer to the site plan of the Conservancy.

Can you please point out the "sea" of asphalt?

Lansdowne Park Conservancy site plan



Boutiques and restaurants will be open all day and into the evening. There will not be any "bars" or "nightclubs" but you will be able to sit outside or in and listen to music and have a drink.

One of the main draws in the summer will be the concert shell and EXPO like environment with buskers in and around the park making it a joyous and interesting place.

In the winter you have both the arena, concert events and Soccer Dome bringing in a continuous flow of people plus tourists. Winter events will be Winterlude events, x-country skiing, indoor gym in the North Stands salon space plus the regular Granville Island like mix of interesting local business.

A destination site like Granville Island, that promotes local business and farmers and artists. Granville Island brings in 10M visitors per year. We anticipate 1/2 of that in our first year, the inaugural 2014 that includes the FIFA WU20.

[lpc]

Moved to new thread "The New Official Lansdowne Park Conservancy Thread"

[michaelae]

Originally Posted by phil235

There are two problems with your suggestion of a market à la Jean-Talon.

Hi Phil235,
Sorry i don't respond to everything (as per your other comment)... it takes time, and i am exploring subjects. I don't mean to avoid specific topics.. just time.

First, Ottawa already has a similar market, the Byward Market, which will always be a larger tourist draw than any market at Lansdowne.

Yes, Byward is good. I'm not sure it's captured the Jean Talon sort of business, but i do note it is one of Ottawa's interesting spots. I would hope we could create something useful, different, and appealing at Lansdowne, and was suggesting the Jean Talon feel is found in many cities in the world and seems to have universal appeal and is a touristy zone in many places (depends if there's enough touristy stuff, eg. more market vs more Granville (the "standard reference" i hear, let's use it as model not as exact copy) ), etc. I would think we could invent something with the right balance for Ottawa, and complementary to others. I think we have enough demand for more than one "Byward Market", especially if they each have their own local feel and interests. And as i said , the vision i posed is not similar to Byward, but i could imagine some similar things like restaurants and little places to hang out. Ottawa needs more of those, and in areas you go to 9like the size of lansdowne). Imagine that in the summer with bands playing in the Conservancy outdoor music shell !

Second, have you been to Jean-Talon market after 3 pm? The place is a sea of service vehicles and workers tearing down stands. A market on a scale even close to that would not make Lansdowne a public place all the time. It would likely be busy during the day and pretty much deserted in the later afternoon and evenings.

I think i have a few times and didn't have any problems, but i checked with a friend who lived around there many years and went there a lot. I was told that the "sea of vehicles" is not a problem you just walk around them and continue your normal shopping business (which has been my experience). She said Jean Talon has some stalls open all night that is used by people who work late for example. Apparently these are some of the larger stalls and you can pretty much get anything from them. I checked on the web it shows 6 and 8pm hours most days which is much later than the 3pm you mention, i presume those specific stands are in addition. Anyways i don't see a problem with stands all day (pick a good end time) transforming more into nightlife / pubs / bars later. Some smart planning by smart people should be able to get smart results as to logistics etc.
So i maintain this area could be an interesting market + granville sort of thing, preferably mixed with touristy stores like art, football gear, restaurants, pubs, etc. Something that breathes. Something for everyone. Something that's not big cement structures.

In additions, I kind of doubt that you could sustain a daily, year round market there, so that would make for even more down time. That is not a true public place of the type that the City is looking to create at Lansdowne.

I disagree, if done right a market at Lansdowne can easily be a long hours every day, an interesting tourist place, that has both local and visitor interest. I will even go as far as to predict that one way or another the city or someone will build such a market and that it will be successful, however that won't happen at lansdowne if there's 500,000 sq ft of chain stores plus condos and office spaces.
However you are right that a variety of things would make sense at lansdowne. I'm not saying to make it just a market, i'm saying a large market can be developed over the next say 5 years based on incremental business success (invest / observe / tune / invest more /...) .
The city doesn't seem to understand incremental investment for incremental success though, but that's another fault line in the oseg plan (trying not to go there on this forum).

I also note that Little Italy has been trying to put together a market of the type that you are hoping for in some unused industrial buildings, and in my view, that is a much better place for it.

Perhaps Little Italy is a good place, perhaps it just means Ottawa is ready for such a market. In all cases, a full size market is due in Ottawa, and Lansdowne could either be the main hub or a large side hub.
I maintain that the oseg plan is a waste of public property, i don't like what it'll do to our taxes, and although i understand people on this board seem to like a ("don't call it a mall") i think it's a big time wasted opportunity.

Re. the surface parking in the conservancy, i agree it is not ideal. It is however 50M cheaper than the oseg proposal, it is a narrow ring, has about 50% more spots than the oseg underground plan (counting reserved condo spots etc), and personally i don't relish the thought of going through underground parking to go to the site vs zipping down a ring road and dropping off the car. However I think the right solution to all proposals is a rapid public transportation to the site, which i haven't seen in any of the plans - Ottawa's poor planning skills have resulted in a useless tunnel that doesn't help anything and to bring out what specifically addresses this forum, doesn't resolve Lansdowne in the least which is a massive failure of vision from the city. You can add "people getting tired of traffic jams" as a major risk for both football and a large scale shopping area (see i'm still avoiding using "shopping mall" as several folks in this forum don't like it ).

As to the claims (not yours Phil235) that the Conservancy uses donations (private or corporate) to operate, i'd invite someone to point me to them ( http://www.lpc-cpl.ca/proposal.html ) cause far as i can tell it's all business revenues that pay the bill. It's a very mechanical balance sheet and risks are not wrapped up in lawyer or accountant magic (unlike the oseg's plan) and are easily understood and managed. I like that because that's how i do business.

As to the delayed construction, well i guess we'll have to wait for the court case to decide what happens. That's really the single largest turning point (unless OMB , heritage, etc cause yet another stall or break). Court actions are likely to cause a reset that can range from bids on existing stuff all the way back to square one. I think the Conservancy is likely a very strong contender in these cases and i'm not too worried they won't be able to get all assurances/ backing needed for serious consideration (especially if terms are anything like oseg gets now, lol). What i was hoping to understand here was some of the things people like or do not like in all the possible plans - thank you for sharing your views.

[phil235]

Michealae, thanks for your response and the detailed explanation of your points.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the viability of a huge market at Lansdowne. I just don't believe that Ottawa is a large enough city to support two large markets. Smaller neighbourhood markets, absolutely, but the type of place that you are describing (a large market that is surrounded by restaurants and bars) is really along the lines of the Byward Market and would be in direct competition with it. You haven't provided any compelling description of the differences between the two.

We'll also have to disagree that the market would draw people all of the time. Yes, there are some stalls that are open later, but the vast majority of the stalls close up in the evenings. You then have unusuable empty space (and unusable paved space in every market I've ever seen). Even the Byward Market isn't open evenings, and it is greatly scaled back in the colder months. And the Byward Market is in a prime tourist district, on rapid transit and surrounded by a high-denisty residential area with built-in customers. There is really no evidence of any kind that a market at Lansdowne would be anything but a part-time user of the public space. A market may be part of a good public space, but it won't anchor one by itself.

I would also point out that these bars and restaurants that you are counting on would need to be in buildings. And unlike Granville Island or Jean Talon Market, Lansdowne doesn't have the small outdated commercial-industrial buildings that lend themselves to that sort of development. You aren't going to get a vibrant space by sticking some bars and restaurants in the horticulture building and the Coliseum.

That is one area where the OSEG plan is far superior to the Conservancy Plan. It recognizes that to create a busy entertainment district, new structures will need to be created. And it also recognizes that to ensure that the space is used at all times, it mixes in other uses - office and residential in this case. The plan is fully in line with widely accepted theories on best practices in modern urban planning. The Conservancy has no answer to how it would fulfill the directive from the City to create a vibrant place, other than to say that if you build the bars and restaurants, people will come. Is the Glebe really underserved by bars and restaurants? Are people going to prefer this market to the Byward Market? There really doesn't seem to be any explanation for why that would be so. Saying that people prefer surface parking is not going to cut it.

It's fine to use rhetoric like "big cement boxes" when describing the OSEG plan for political purposes, but you must realize that such statements are clearly inaccurate. The OSEG plan includes a variety of structures of different sizes and materials, arranged to create a new urban square. The design was created by some of the top architects and planners in the City, and is being refined by some of the top experts in the country. Criticize the design if you want, but do it precisely, instead of resorting to meaningless rhetoric. If anything, from where I sit, the Conservancy's use of the Coliseum and Horticulture Building is far closer to "large cement boxes" than anything OSEG has proposed.

I do agree with you that an incremental approach is often preferrable to large-scale projects. However, I don't think that the Conservancy is proposing a true incremetal approach. Yes, the market would presumably grow (or not), but there is no proposal for incremental development. In fact, that would seem to fly directly in the face of the principles of "peace" and "tranquility" and keeping the space "public" that underpin Conservancy plan.

If the Conservancy were to promote an incremental development of the site, which incuded a bigger variety of uses, including a mainstreet presence on Bank, spent the money to accomplish the critical task of burying the parking, and presented financials that were not based on income from sources that are not guaranteed, I would certainly be willing to listen. Or I would have been, had the Conservancy come forward at any time during the 30 years that Lansdowne has been a parking lot.

[lpc]

Moved to new thread "The New Official Lansdowne Park Conservancy Thread"

[lpc]

Moved to new thread "The New Official Lansdowne Park Conservancy Thread"

[lpc]

Moved to new thread "The New Official Lansdowne Park Conservancy Thread"

[lpc]

Moved to new thread "The New Official Lansdowne Park Conservancy Thread"

[lpc]

Moved to new thread "The New Official Lansdowne Park Conservancy Thread"

[lpc]

Moved to new thread "The New Official Lansdowne Park Conservancy Thread"

[matty14]

Originally Posted by lpc

Lets get moving on Lansdowne Park, the only hold up is the developer group being unwilling to enter a competitive process.

No, actually the only hold up is a group of self-important yuppies bent on trying to reverse a decision made democratically by our democratically elected council.

[lpc]

Please direct all replies to the New thread for a reply.