Building LeBreton Flats - Master Planning

[OTSkyline]

I still don't understand why a revamped or tweaked DCDLS proposal is out of the question...

If they are to split the land and parcel off to different developers you can be sure that all developers will be proposing condos on their lots - that's whats most profitable. Why would any developer go out of his/her way to propose an attraction or public housing or any other amenity?

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

I still don't understand why a revamped or tweaked DCDLS proposal is out of the question...

If they are to split the land and parcel off to different developers you can be sure that all developers will be proposing condos on their lots - that's whats most profitable. Why would any developer go out of his/her way to propose an attraction or public housing or any other amenity?

I know the criticism of the DCDLS proposal, however, if we want to expand our tourist area to the west, and support waterfront developments, we need to have more attractions than the War Museum and an arena, if the latter ever gets built. I particularly want to see the Aquarium built on Lebreton, which is a multi-generational attraction and a welcome escape in our long winters.

I agree that economics of parceling the land will lead to luxury condo heavy development. If we leave public amenities up to the city, we are almost guaranteed that they will be mediocre quality.

[daud]

something about all this just doesn't sit right with me.

the NCC and the city have had palpable resistance to the Devcore proposal for some time. Why? Jim Watson was on the mic saying we need a new RFP almost a minute after the Rendez-vous was cancelled. Why?

What is it about Devcore's proposal that makes it such a non-starter? To the point the NCC won't even respond to their questions? No reason has been provided to the public or Devcore.

I'm not the only one scratching my head; the same article on facebook has comments about the secrecy, suggestions of developer kickbacks.

This thing is a total mess, and frankly, I liked the devcore proposal as much right from the start.

I sure hope developer interests are not trumping the public's in this situation. I have no reason to suggest it but like everything involving the flats and the senators...secrecy, mystery and silence with a dash of crazy.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by daud

something about all this just doesn't sit right with me.

the NCC and the city have had palpable resistance to the Devcore proposal for some time. Why? Jim Watson was on the mic saying we need a new RFP almost a minute after the Rendez-vous was cancelled. Why?

What is it about Devcore's proposal that makes it such a non-starter? To the point the NCC won't even respond to their questions? No reason has been provided to the public or Devcore.

I'm not the only one scratching my head; the same article on facebook has comments about the secrecy, suggestions of developer kickbacks.

This thing is a total mess, and frankly, I liked the devcore proposal as much right from the start.

I sure hope developer interests are not trumping the public's in this situation. I have no reason to suggest it but like everything involving the flats and the senators...secrecy, mystery and silence with a dash of crazy.

Threats of lawsuits if proper process is not followed?

[Harley613]

I attended the public event for the proposals at the War Museum way back when and was absolutely confident DCDLS was the clear winner. Frankly I found the Rendezvous proposal a snoozefest aside from the arena. The DCDLS proposal was visionary and felt like something you'd see in a new district in China these days. I really hope they find a way to work together and we don't get a condo wasteland.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Harley613

I attended the public event for the proposals at the War Museum way back when and was absolutely confident DCDLS was the clear winner. Frankly I found the Rendezvous proposal a snoozefest aside from the arena. The DCDLS proposal was visionary and felt like something you'd see in a new district in China these days. I really hope they find a way to work together and we don't get a condo wasteland.

The majority on this board preferred the Rendezvous proposal, although maybe it was just the ones who were most vocal who made it seem that way.

I felt the same way as you when I saw the proposal at the War Museum and I met someone I knew who was working on the Rendezvous proposal. I had to be diplomatic at the time. DCDLS seemed more visionary especially if we wanted tourists to find Lebreton attractive. I know some poo pooed some of the attractions. The attractions may have changed by the time of implementation. I like the idea of thinking outside the box and that was the DCDLS proposal. Sometimes we want to do the tried and true or compromise our way towards mediocrity.

All I want to avoid is Claridge Lebreton Phase 2, 3, 4+ and that is a real possibility given the recent trend of building condos over offices and retail downtown.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Harley613

I attended the public event for the proposals at the War Museum way back when and was absolutely confident DCDLS was the clear winner. Frankly I found the Rendezvous proposal a snoozefest aside from the arena. The DCDLS proposal was visionary and felt like something you'd see in a new district in China these days. I really hope they find a way to work together and we don't get a condo wasteland.

Even setting aside they didn’t have a plan to pay for any of the proposed facilities, unlike China where a local authority would just throw money at it, it would have been quite dead most of the time (Ontario place).

[Harley613]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Even setting aside they didn’t have a plan to pay for any of the proposed facilities, unlike China where a local authority would just throw money at it, it would have been quite dead most of the time (Ontario place).

Why would an area full of attractions and a good mix of office/cultural/retail/residential be quite dead most of the time? Deader than Rendezvous which was some condos and a few restaurants along a storm drain? Also, Ontario Place is nothing like the DCDLS proposal.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Harley613

Why would an area full of attractions and a good mix of office/cultural/retail/residential be quite dead most of the time? Deader than Rendezvous which was some condos and a few restaurants along a storm drain? Also, Ontario Place is nothing like the DCDLS proposal.

I think Ontario Place (before it closed) was very similar to the DSDLS proposal. A bunch of random attractions, a lot of open space and mid century modern architecture. You would park, go to the attraction you wanted to see, walk back to your car and drive home.

[Mille Sabords]

The Devcore proposal was terrible for several reasons: (1) it treated the entire Lebreton area as a series of "sites" with no urban fabric between them - and the flashy tourist attractions were basically standalone buildings on top of a gigantic parking garage; (2) very weak residential component, segregated to the south along Albert, with none toward the river; (3) poor north-south connectivity - in effect, Lebreton would've been sliced into two very disconnected areas: the Wellington corridor with its tourist attractions; and the Albert corridor with its residences; (4) a car museum? really? (5) a bunch of other flashy, easy-to-render, feel-goody things that were by and of themselves not "wrong" but, again, shown as "sites" independent of an urban fabric, or in abstraction of one, (6) the arena was too close to one of the stations, not between the two, and way too self-contained - again, not part of a restored city grid and not even trying to be "of the city" but very much a "pod" on its own.

It's a snazzy, snake-oil-salesman approach to redeveloping a piece of land that is one-third the size of downtown Ottawa. It's tugging on the easy heartstrings without doing any of the real heavy lifting in true city-building. It delivered a bunch of g-spots, independent of each other and interchangeable but without any real connecting tissue. And above all, it's basically a car-centric design posing as the opposite.

[CityTech]

To me the crux of the issue is that Devcore was basically building a theme park, while Rendezvous was building a new urban neighbourhood. This naturally meant Rendezvous would be a) of longer term value to the city (no need to redevelop the whole damn thing again once the attractions aren't interesting anymore), and b) more activity (a neighbourhood with tens of thousands of residents and workers is naturally going to be more busy than a tourist theme park). Furthermore, it made a better addition to Ottawa. We've already got plenty of places that tourists gawk at that die after 6pm, we don't need more.

[daud]

I think these criticisms of the Devcore plan are to a degree oversimplification of a very large proposal. First off, they have said numerous times they are willing to look at any component of the proposal and change.

The other thing they may have done better is propose 2500 residential units instead of 4000, since the latter estimate is in part what caused the Rendez-Vous plan to fall apart. It was deemed unrealistic by PWC and one of the partners.

There was a YMCA, a school, a Canada Communications Centre, the skateboard park would have been extremely successful.

But to throw out the baby with the bathwater, to me, is a mistake because it will ensure Lebreton builds out at a glacial pace over the next 100+ years when you had 2 rich billionaires ready to work with you to do pretty much whatever you wanted. Again, this seems like a mistake to me and the public should be told why...

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by daud

I think these criticisms of the Devcore plan are to a degree oversimplification of a very large proposal. First off, they have said numerous times they are willing to look at any component of the proposal and change.

The other thing they may have done better is propose 2500 residential units instead of 4000, since the latter estimate is in part what caused the Rendez-Vous plan to fall apart. It was deemed unrealistic by PWC and one of the partners.

There was a YMCA, a school, a Canada Communications Centre, the skateboard park would have been extremely successful.

But to throw out the baby with the bathwater, to me, is a mistake because it will ensure Lebreton builds out at a glacial pace over the next 100+ years when you had 2 rich billionaires ready to work with you to do pretty much whatever you wanted. Again, this seems like a mistake to me and the public should be told why...

I think this is the key. How soon can this market really absorb that degree of residential development in a reasonable time frame? We already have three other major residential projects on adjacent lands.

It seems that we need to find the right balance between residential, commercial developments and attractions. The key is that the attractions must appeal to Ottawans as well as tourists so that it becomes sustainable.

Too much residential development will leave the area sterile just as much as if we built all office buildings on the site. Can you imagine if Pentagon North had been built there as originally planned? With today's security, it would be a 'no go' zone, dead as a door nail.

There is no comparability between any Lebreton proposal and Ontario Place, that was totally segregated from residential development and separated from the rest of the city by an expressway. Lebreton absolutely cannot be an autocentric development. It is too bad that the Confederation Line will have so limited amounts of Park n Ride lots on the route until Phase 2 for the east end and Phase 3 for the west. This will really limit accessibility to the site from the suburbs.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by daud

I think these criticisms of the Devcore plan are to a degree oversimplification of a very large proposal. First off, they have said numerous times they are willing to look at any component of the proposal and change.

The NCC was looking for a turn-key redevelopment, not a vague proposal full of pie-in-the-sky ideas that could be re-worked to suit the NCC's vision. Even after the NCC clearly stated why they preferred RVL and what they didn't like about DCDLS, the latter was still acting like a deer in the headlights, demanding answers to why they weren't picked.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I think this is the key. How soon can this market really absorb that degree of residential development in a reasonable time frame? We already have three other major residential projects on adjacent lands.

The same could be said for all the attractions proposed by DCDLS, if they were ever built. Could the City support so many new attractions at once? Would these new destination suddenly attract the tourist numbers needed? Most of what was proposed exists everywhere else in the world. So why would anyone come to Ottawa for something they could see, say in Montreal or Toronto?

Besides, DCDLS's plan B for any of the projects that might have fallen through (like the library) seemed to be condos.

Yes, the RVL proposal fell through because of bickering between the two lead partners, and yes, DCDLS might have gone past the final steps needed for the land transfer (though we never heard anything from any of the partners beyond Devcore and Canderel, so who knows if Desmarais and Laliberté would have pursued the partnership), but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the DCDLS proposed attractions, other than the stuff south of the LRT (minus the library), the aquarium, the mall and maybe the arena would not have come to fruition.

[daud]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

It seems that we need to find the right balance between residential, commercial developments and attractions. The key is that the attractions must appeal to Ottawans as well as tourists so that it becomes sustainable.

probably a good statement everyone can agree on...

[Marshsparrow]

Can we all also agree that the NCC needs to be removed from Lebreton for this to be any chance of successful?

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by Marshsparrow

Can we all also agree that the NCC needs to be removed from Lebreton for this to be any chance of successful?

I know some on here are quite defensive about the NCC.... but I simply have to point to the rotting corpse of 24 Sussex to provide evidence of the NCCs lack of caring and/or ability to get things done.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The NCC was looking for a turn-key redevelopment, not a vague proposal full of pie-in-the-sky ideas that could be re-worked to suit the NCC's vision. Even after the NCC clearly stated why they preferred RVL and what they didn't like about DCDLS, the latter was still acting like a deer in the headlights, demanding answers to why they weren't picked.



The same could be said for all the attractions proposed by DCDLS, if they were ever built. Could the City support so many new attractions at once? Would these new destination suddenly attract the tourist numbers needed? Most of what was proposed exists everywhere else in the world. So why would anyone come to Ottawa for something they could see, say in Montreal or Toronto?

I think that is exactly right. Devcore treated it like a student project, where their job was to brainstorm some ideas and make some nice-looking renders. There was no semblance of a viable business plan, credible urban planning or a path to get the attractions built.

[daud]

GIBBONS: NCC could get LeBreton back on track by revisiting Devcore proposal
Rick Gibbons
Published:
March 18, 2019

So, it appears the National Capital Commission has no intention of abiding by its own process to select a viable plan to develop LeBreton Flats.

Maybe it has lost faith in its own strategy, or maybe it was all a ruse aimed at creating the illusion of a fair and open competition four years ago while the fix was in for the local bidders from the get go.

The RendezVous partnership of Eugene Melnyk and Trinity Developments’ John Ruddy was always seen as the hometown favourites battling against well-moneyed Quebec investors who also had serious designs on owning the Ottawa Senators one day. And they weren’t beyond forcing the issue by proposing an NHL arena as a centrepiece of their development plan, even though they didn’t yet own a team to play there.

Imagine if the skate was on the other foot, so to speak, and the RendezVous bid failed to win the rights to develop LeBreton Flats. Imagine it was then denied a second chance when the alternative bid collapsed. There would be uproar among Senators boosters and calls for changes in NCC leadership.

If it really was a fair competition four years ago, and if the two viable finalists really did meet the criteria, then the NCC had an obligation to turn to the Devcore Canderel Group as soon as it became clear the RendezVous project was headed for the dumpster and couldn’t be salvaged through mediation.

Instead, the NCC ignored its own original process and refused to answer numerous calls and letters from Canderel, which now wants back in the game. Instead it announced a timid new strategy of piecemeal development for the property — with no overarching vision and, at this rate, no real hope of ever becoming a world-class centrepiece in the heart of the city.

The Canderel proposal was a pretty good bid and probably would have been embraced by the NCC were it not for a slightly superior bid by RendezVous. So, why is Canderel now being ignored like its bid was never seriously considered?

It’s too soon to blame any of this on the NCC’s new chief executive, Tobi Nussbaum. But it’s also not too late for him to take the reins early and put the NCC back on track.

Devcore has been waiting for its phone to ring and its letters to be answered by the NCC for weeks now. It’s considering an aggressive legal challenge that could result in the kind of wrangling that would tie up development for years to come.

Devcore president Jean-Pierre Poulin complains of “irregularities” in the process and is frustrated the NCC won’t now return his calls.

“We met all the criteria,” he said in an interview.

“We were a preferred proponent. The NCC asked us to step on the sidelines (after Devcore finished second in the competition) and then didn’t decide to call us back. It’s very disappointing.”

Poulin won’t say why he was invited to join mediation efforts between former RendezVous partners Melnyk and Ruddy after their partnership collapsed. He won’t even hint what was discussed.

It may have been an attempt to get all the rival bidders into the same room to see if a joint alternative proposal could be developed that would salvage the main components of the RendezVous bid and avoid the kind of legal challenges that always flow from the collapse of projects this magnitude.

The NCC does not want to spend the next few years in court. Cases of this sort take years and often millions of dollars to litigate and would push a key piece of LeBreton development back into the deep freeze for a decade or more.

“What Ottawa needs in our estimation is a project that is really going to knocks our socks off,” says Ottawa Board of Trade president Ian Faris.

His board is urging the NCC to revisit the Canderel bid now that the RendezVous bid is dead.

The board fears the NCC is losing momentum for development and needs to get back on track by honouring its original commitment to a process. It could start by answering Canderel’s calls.

With a federal election looming, politicians of all stripe will be anxious to step into the vacuum created by absent leadership by the NCC.

This whole exercise of selecting a major development proposal was designed to keep politics out of the process. On that score, the NCC may be about to fail miserably.

https://ottawasun.com/opinion/column...vcore-proposal

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Enough about DevCore! JFC...