The next phase of redevelopment at Lansdowne Park comes before Ottawa city council today.
The city’s finance and economic development committee has already given the green light to the plan, which would see the north side stands at TD Place and the Civic Center demolished and rebuilt, and three high-rise towers added to the site to provide a mixture of 1,200 condos and rental units.
The $332 million plan would be funded from the sale of air rights, debt funding and some capital budget funding for internal costs. The city would borrow $239 million for the project.
The Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) says the north side stands and the Civic Center are functionally obsolete and need to be replaced.
“In hindsight, there are two things we should have done differently back in 2010. We should have replaced old, centennial facilities on the site and we should have included more residential on the site,” OSEG executive chairman Roger Greenberg said. “Thankfully, we have an opportunity to address those deficits now.”
Ottawa Tourism, the Ottawa Board of Trade, and the Glebe BIA expressed support for the plan.
However, Capital ward Coun. Shawn Menard has criticized the plan for lacking in robust public consultation and has argued that it should be debated in the municipal election, which is being held in October.
The Federation of Citizen’s Associations of Ottawa is also calling on the city to hold off on any decision about Lansdowne Park until after the Oct. 24 vote.
“The Federation of Citizen’s Associations (FCA) strongly believes that there needs to be broad public consultation on this $330 million plan involving the City’s 40 acre park that includes major city assets, including a stadium, arena, heritage buildings, and park space, as well as the commercial developments that Lansdowne 1.0 created,” said FCA president Alex Cullen.
OSEG’s timeline for the project calls for work on the Events Center to begin this November. Work on the north-side stands and on the residential towers would begin in 2024.
The plan would have originally come before city council on May 25, but the meeting was canceled amid cleanup from the May 21 storm that knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people across the city.
The council meeting begins at 10 am
–With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Josh Pringle.