Former city manager calls recent support for Lansdowne 2.0 ‘over-the-top hyperbole’

DAN STANKOVIC

If there was one document published so far this year that earns my award for the most over-the-top hyperbole, it would have to go to the June 13, 2025, open letter to Mayor Sutcliffe and Members of Ottawa City Council advocating support for Lansdowne 2.0 that was prepared by the leaders of Ottawa Unlimited.  

Before I continue, Ottawa Unlimited was created in December 2024 as a “revolutionary collaboration” between the Ottawa Board of Trade, Invest Ottawa and Ottawa Tourism. The Presidents/CEOs of the three organizations are the leaders of Ottawa Unlimited. According to them, Ottawa Unlimited represents a “new radical collaboration for economic growth and global competitiveness” for the city.

Ottawa Unlimited’s Open Letter

If you believe the arguments presented in the open letter from Ottawa Unlimited, a failure of City Council to approve Lansdowne 2.0 will seriously jeopardize our global reputation as a “world class innovation” city not to mention severely diminish the efforts to revitalize Ottawa’s downtown. The following quotes illustrate the  hyperbole of Ottawa Unlimited’s letter:

“This opportunity [Lansdowne 2.0] is a strategic investment in Ottawa’s future, foundational to the success of key economic development initiatives such as downtown transformation, entrepreneurial opportunities and world class innovation.

(…)

“Now is the time to act…Delayed action will result in opportunity costs and increase reputational risk. Conversely, a clear and decisive path forward will ignite confidence in our economy and in Ottawa as a contemporary city of opportunity. Today’s global economy demands bold decisions.

“This is a defining moment for our community and the future of the national capital region. Together, we can build a legacy of leadership and prosperity for the world to see. It’s our time.”

Here are the reasons why I think the Ottawa Unlimited open letter represents the extreme limit of exaggerated local boosterism:

• The reality is that most people outside of Ottawa and the different sports leagues, never mind the global community, likely don’t care if Lansdowne 2.0 gets City Council approval or not. Remember, this whole Lansdowne redevelopment initiative started about 17 years ago when OSEG’s founding partners of the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) wanted to bring back CFL football to Lansdowne Park. Without the CFL awarding a football franchise to OSEG, there would not be a Lansdowne 1.0 or 2.0. The complex financial arrangement between the City and OSEG and the progression of development proposals were driven by the desire to bring back professional football and by the need to reduce the cost burden to the City for replacing the underfunded Frank Clair Stadium/ Civic Centre. We are now in 2025, and the future of Lansdowne Park continues to be debated by City Council. So much for a “clear and decisive path forward” and the importance of making “bold decisions.”
• Even if delay in Lansdowne 2.0 investment was to result in lost opportunity costs and increased reputational risk, these negative fallouts would still pale compared to the LRT disaster and to the associated public transit woes of poor quality of service and budget deficits. An efficient, effective and well managed public transit network would go much further to enhancing Ottawa’s quality of life and global economic competitiveness than Lansdowne 2.0.
• It is quite a stretch to classify Lansdowne 2.0 as a successful public private partnership (P3) in terms of economic and social returns. To my mind, it is an example of a perverse P3 project. The OSEG proposal to City Council was unsolicited and was followed by a sole-sourced procurement process. As a result, community input into the proposed redevelopment during the initial phase was precluded. Political decisions around land use and financial contributions were generally not dealt with in an open, transparent and participatory way leading to divisiveness and mistrust between the community and elected officials and OSEG. Such attributes are not normally thought of when describing successful public private partnerships.
• If Lansdowne 2.0 is supposed to be “foundational” to the renewal of Ottawa’s downtown, I wonder then why the only mention of Lansdowne 2.0 (or 1.0) in the Ottawa Board of Trade’s Downtown Ottawa Action Agenda released in May 2024 is found in the appendix inside a long list of City reports. More importantly, the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park has also been viewed by some as being a competitor to the revitalization of the downtown and, in particular, the Byward Market because the City has focussed its resource investment on Lansdowne.

Community protest against Lansdowne 2.0:

There is a statement made in Ottawa Unlimited’s open letter that global cities today are “defining their future by investing boldly in city building, infrastructure and

placemaking” – the latter being a concept popularized by urban planners. The Canadian urban visionary Jane Jacobs emphasized the importance of diverse participation in city planning and development pointing out that top-down planning often overlooks the unique perspectives and needs of different communities. In her 1961 book, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, Jacobs states that “cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

The Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) has adopted Jane Jacobs’ views on placemaking in their 2025 publication “Let’s Talk about Placemaking”.  The CUI also has a close association with the Ottawa Board of Trade having written the Board’s Downtown Ottawa Action Agenda. Placemaking is not something that can be outsourced to a private sector group with an interest in commercializing public space. Placemaking needs to be driven by community wide needs to ensure community ownership in any (re)development of public lands. Lansdowne 2.0 (and 1.0) fails in this regard.

Dan Stankovic is an Ottawa urban economist with diverse experience with local government and private consulting. His experience includes 20 years with the City of Ottawa as Director responsible for the management of housing and economic development programs and services. You can read more of Dan Stankovic’s views in his Urbanomics blog at https://urbanomicsblog.wordpress.com/