John Dance
The “preliminary exterior concept” rendering of the proposed Lansdowne Park event centre, viewed from the northeast, shows how the toboggan hill would be greatly reduced and how a large portion of the wall would be essentially a blank face. Image by City of Ottawa
Local community associations have severely criticized the City’s draft plan for a new event centre on the green space to the east of the Lansdowne stadium because of its poor user accessibility, inadequate transit linkage, diminution of green parkland, and poor design features.
Further, they and others have noted that the new event centre will be too small for Ottawa’s Professional Women’s Hockey League team and large events that currently can be accommodated by the existing event centre/arena below the northside stands.
The City proposes to build a new event centre on most of the area now occupied by the toboggan hill “berm” and on some of the adjacent Great Lawn, a key feature of the award-winning urban park built just 10 years ago. The toboggan hill will be reduced to “a bit of a berm,” as one of the consultants put it, and will have a total descent of about five metres, about a third of what it is now.
During the discussions at the “pre-application consultations” to which community associations were invited, City consultantsrepeatedly spoke of the difficulty, complexity and challenges of the site in terms of fitting in a new event centre.
One of the biggest challenges has been figuring out how to provide access to the new event centre. As the proposal now stands, everybody will have to enter just to the east of where the north stands now end. This 15 metre-wide “pinch point” is adjacent to the loading dock ramp that will serve both the event centre and the stadium and the access will be split into vehicular and pedestrian lanes.
Community associations have argued for years that vehicular access through the park should be limited to only essential functions but Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG), the City’s Lansdowne partner, has successfully pushed back, claiming, amongst other things, that restrictions would be detrimental to the various businesses within the commercial part of the park. With the proposed relocation of the event centre deeper within the park, more vehicles will be in conflict with pedestrian and cyclist use of the park.
“The City and OSEG have argued that the event centre will have improved accessibility compared to the current facilities but that will be the case only once you get inside the new facility,” notes the Old Ottawa East (OOECA) response to the draft plan. “All people – whether they travel by ParaTranspo, private vehicle, or other means – must go half way through the park to actually get to the new facility. There is no justification for increasing the distance that all event centre users will encounter.”
“The other reality is that virtually all users will take longer to get to the event centre than would be the case if a new event centre was built at or near an LRT station,” says OOECA. “City staff should have quantified the travel time for new event centre users and compared that to what would have been the case if the event centre was built at an LRT station. The City and OSEG have used ‘improved accessibility’ as a primary justification for a new event centre at Lansdowne but they have done so with complete disregard for what improved accessibility would be if the new event centre were at or near an LRT station.”
Design Review Panel (UDRP) also has questioned the proposed access and vehicular provisions of the plan. “The Panel has serious concerns with the prospects of an award-winning park design being reconfigured for vehicular access,” its report says. “The amount of park space being dedicated to vehicular circulation is problematic and should be reconsidered.”
UDRP has specifically asked whether “[T]here are possibilities to have servicing access from within the future building podium or from the west side beneath the stadium stands? This would be much better both from an urban design perspective and functionally as well.” OOECA also raised this question but the City dismissed it with a “Noted” comment.
“Being adjacent to a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Panel believes that this proposal needs to ensure strong attention to details and be of an elevated caliber,” the UDRP notes.” The materiality and architectural details of the building and landscape need to thoughtfully enhance the surrounding context.”
The UDRP has also made many recommendations so that the new event centre becomes compatible with the existing urban park, including the historic Aberdeen Pavilion. The UDRP also objects to the City’s removal of the originally proposed “planted green roof.” This was eliminated for budgetary reasons
of the experience at Lansdowne Park.”
- Shawn Menard
Meanwhile the estimated cost of the Lansdowne 2.0 project has gone from $332.6 million to $419 million, although the City’s Auditor General says it may be$77 million more. Alexandra Gruca-Macaulay, OOECA’s Lansdowne Committee Chair, notes that the figure doesn’t include another $19 million of proposed work in the City’s estimates. The total cost of the renovations to the City, including the original project of $210 million may be close to $700 million and, so far, the City has yet to see a dollar of profit.
The fundamental issue of whether Lansdowne Park is the best location for a new entertainment centre continues to be ignored by Mayor Sutcliffe and most City Councillors. As a result of the success of Ottawa’s PWHL team with average attendance of 7,500 fans at Lansdowne’s existing entertainment centre, many people questioned why the proposed new entertainment centre will have seating for just 5,500 fans. But Sutcliffe has dismissed this concern, telling TSN: “This arena is going to serve a multitude of purposes; we’re not just building an arena for PWHL Ottawa.”
He went on to explain that there would be many other uses of the new facility and noted that the PWHL team would only use the arena 15 times a year. Meanwhile, as another part of the Lansdowne 2.0 plan, the northside stands are to be demolished and replaced – also with reduced capacity – even though both sides of the stadium are primarily required for just a dozen Redblacks games a year.
Capital Ward Councillor Shawn Menard, who has been leading the effort to make substantial and affordable changes to the Lansdowne plan, commented: “Lansdowne 2.0 is an ill-conceived plan that will reduce the quality of the experience at Lansdowne Park. Consider for a moment that with this plan we lose a roof over the north side stands, fewer seats means higher ticket costs, drastically less green space and no hill for casual far-away event viewing or sledding in the winter.”
“The plan will result in more cars circulating through the park, and buildings that will be exceptionally expensive with no affordable housing and with 90 percent of their property taxes siphoned off to help make a dent in the over $500 million in debt repayments over 40 years,” concludes Menard. “From a sports fan, park-goer, and taxpayer perspective, this plan is not an improvement. We remain concerned with the Lansdowne 2.0 proposal for all of the reasons raised by the community and by the UDRP and will be encouraging Council to reconsider it as a whole at the next decision point.”
On September 10th, the City will be holding a “virtual” public meeting on the draft plan and it will then be reviewed by the City’s Accessibility Committee before it is finalized by staff.
Editor’s Note: John Dance is on OOECA’s Lansdowne and Planning committees and has participated in Lansdowne-related consultations with the City.
