New North Side + arena, for three towers with 1,200 units — a trade we should make?
There's much to like about OSEG's proposal — although it's likely to get a frosty reception at city hall and in the Glebe
Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Apr 27, 2022 • 3 hours ago • 3 minute read
Oh for Lansdowne’s best-laid plans — in April, the cruelest month.
Wednesday’s media briefing was held outside, Section S, South Side, in a frigid, hair-tangling wind, with snow squalling sideways across the perfectly green field, the assembled reporters looking like Shackleton’s huddled crew, the seven guest speakers not much warmer on a thin iceberg of chairs.
“I think I’ll stop now. My hands are frozen,” architect Barry Hobin said, surrendering the hand-held microphone after an abbreviated slide presentation.
One imagines the $330-million proposal may be headed for a frosty reception at city hall as well, where it is to be received by a committee of councillors in May.
There is quite a bit to like about the proposal from the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group. It is pitching a new North Side stands, to hold 11,200 (plus standing room) and a relocation of the Civic Centre arena to where the east-end berm sits, beyond the end zone.
The new arena, or “event centre,” would be smaller (5,500 versus 9,500), thus better suited to junior hockey crowds and filling a niche for travelling entertainment acts too big for the National Arts Centre but not suitable for the Canadian Tire Centre.
(A quick history reminder: The North Side and Civic Centre were built as Centennial projects and — in arena and dog years — 1967 was a very long time ago. “Leaking, rusting, crumbling, beginning to fall apart,” is pretty much the non-engineer’s verdict on the hulking structure.)
Now to the troublesome part. OSEG is pitching three towers — two rental, one condo — behind the new north stands, to hold about 1,200 residential units. The towers (of unspecified height, but one assumes the 30-storey range) would sit on a new podium that would house about 100,000 square feet of retail, more than twice what currently exists.
Well, the Glebe will have a thing or two to say about dropping 1,200 highrise units along a short spur off Bank Street. And some of those things will not be good.
As for financing, well, here is where the magical thinking comes in. There are probably four people in the city who truly understand how OSEG’s “”waterfall” financial arrangement with the city truly works and, trust me, I’m not one of them.
But we’re told the city would take on debt to secure the $330 million, then sell the “air rights” for the three towers and use “tax increment financing” to cover the rest. The idea is that the towers would create a good deal of new property tax, in perpetuity, and a portion of that would be used to eventually retire the debt.
OSEG calls this “self-financing,” which we will take at face value.
Capital Ward Coun. Shawn Menard awaits the city staff report on the proposal but has initial concerns. He said Wednesday he’s open to the possibility of more housing density at Lansdowne but thinks the plan needs a broad public consultation before next steps are taken.
Among the aspects to be explored, he said, are the new sporting venues, changes to the public realm, the effects on transportation and the public financing. The issue is big enough, he believes, that it should be left to the next mayor and council, to come into office after the October election.
OSEG imagines a much quicker timeline: the committee level in May, to council later that month, possibly shovels in the ground in November.
Give this much to the private partner: They have a plan and they’re in a hurry. The arena would be built first, from 2023 to 2025, the stadium from 2025-27, with the towers in the pipe from 2024 to 2029.
Because it would be phased, CFL football and junior A hockey would not be disrupted. And, oddly, the important vista to the Aberdeen Pavilion would actually be improved (widened) because, as Hobin puts it, the current North Side is “a space hog.”
(Its footprint is so big, in fact, that the new stands and proposed retail podium would easily fit inside it.)
There will be much discussion, no doubt, about the whether the city is turning over more of its premier public park to private, for-profit interests. Well, that deal with the devil has already been struck, has it not? When you have Whole Foods, you’ve gone whole hog, no?
The city could have entirely redone the park on its own. Instead, it threw much of the cost — and the risk — to the private sector. (The results, on the whole, have been fairly good, I would argue.)
So now to fix the last big broken piece, the ’67 hangover. Only how?
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-291-6265 or email kegan@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...we-should-make
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