The Lansdowne Debate Is On Again

Give it up folks.

The stadium is going in at Lansdowne.

It is just a matter of who builds it.

Sheridan...not to nitpick, but" goals" does not really replace traction in my remarks or anywhere else for that matter.

In fact your response seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with my post, I guess you just felt the need to roll out a rhetorical question apropos of nothing...

By the way the  Melnyk proposal was judged to be more advantages to Mr. Melnyk and less for the city then the OSEG proposal.

I am sure that you will be shocked to find that I place more trust in that decision by council then the ruminations of John Martin and FoL's spin doctors.

Of course the main advantage for you would be that  Mr. Melnyk's  stadium would not be at Lansdowne, but far away in Kanata.

.

And you have already told us that your preferred answer for Lansdowne is "luxury" retirement homes and condos.

More fun with facts:

"The fact is, the Grey Cup is a HUGE injection of money into the local economy in addition to the added employment and national/international exposure it gives the city as a tourist destination"

This is highly questionable.  First off, there would be 8 other cities vying for the Grey Cup, therefore, one would expect to host the game once every decade or so.  That's a pretty big investment to make for a bonanza that only comes once every 3650 days...okay, maybe the celebrations last a week or so...still a big investment to make for a once a decade payoff.  That might be an element of support, but it certainly holds a pretty limited amount of sway to my opinion of this project being an enormous waste of money, resources, limited City effort, etc.

GC: It does not seem to me that you are making a compromise. My compromise would be to redevelop Lansdowne with a mix of historical buildings/park area/civic centre/condos/restaurants/shops (no office towers, or high rise buildings). I would agree to Melnyk's stadium; with his money  in the construction, there is a greater chance that it would be done correctly, and with the least amount of funding from the city (albeit still large). And with an outside chance of Provincial and Federal contributions (just sponsor the Franco-Ontario games, or some such thing). You get your CFL and the taxpayer gets some offsets from the Lansdowne commercial developments. No special deals, or transit problems.

Cassandra: The first objective of FOL was to get a court hearing, and  they succeeded: it will be in June. Their ultimate goal (or ultimate traction --to use your terminology) will be to win that court challenge. What is your legal evidence that FOL will not win this court challenge?

Lets all have hysterics!

Extra,extra,read all about it.

FoL not getting any traction and determined to make mountains of molehills.

TL

Story on CBC just confirmed City Manager Kent Kirkpatrick also sole sourced the management contract to Graham Bird.

It is getting beyond ridiculous.

The City Manager has a duty to ensure that the taxpayer gets best value through an open and competitive process.

The recently renewed contract for the City Manager position came in at over $300,000.00 per year. For a City Manager! Even the deputy City Manager makes close to that.

As someone pointed out it would be a good time for the City to have an open and competitive process for these Senior posts.

We can arguably get better people for half that amount who will actually look out for the taxpayer interest and do the job they are paid to do.

Look at the turnaround of the Senators since a few of the high paid players were traded?

Shake up is good and much needed at the City of Ottawa Senior Staff levels.

I see Kirkpatrick issued a sole source contract to manage the project.  Quite the habit at city hall.

He alludes to having the authority since he was asked at a council meeting if the same contractor was to be responsible throughout the project, Kirkpatrick said yes.  Kirkpatrick states if the councillors had issues they could have raised them at that time.

My questions:

- did the RFP for the initial management contract stipulate that the city reserved the right to extend the contract w/o competition

- was the original RFP competed

- did the original RFP make clear the potential scope of the work

- when Kirkpatrick presented the contract information to counsel did he advise them of the details of the procurement process being followed and that subsequent contracts would be directed

- was the sole source value of the contract within Kirkpatrick's authority

- did the contract authority for a directed/sole source contract of this value specifically approve the contract and its terms and conditions as well as the procurement process

CB - while it isn't ideal that we don't have a "better" team to use the baseball stadium, the Fat Cats seem to be a bit of a catalyst for more use of the facility.  As Ken has posted in another article on his blog, the Gee Gees are going to use the stadium and there are community baseball groups who use it as well.  There is still some talk about the Jays placing their AA team here, although it doesn't appear to be imminent.  Ditto discussions with a return to the independent Can-Am league.  But it is a discussion we couldn't have without the stadium.  And it is getting use and maintenance for a potential new tenant.

By the way, do you know how much rent the AAA Lynx paid annually on the stadium?  I don't, but the $108,000 the Fat Cats pay sounds similar to what the Can-Am Rapidz paid for their one season.

To add more fuel to the fire:  the project maangers hired by the City received a $2.1M sole-source contract.  (Source:  CBC - www.cbc.ca/.../ottawa-lansdowne-contract.html)

City staff just don't seem to understand...

Just a heads up for CB--and for Ken who is a fan of university sport---the Gee-Gees will be fielding a team at the baseball stadium this fall. They have an agreement with the fat Cats to sub-lease staring this September. There is an article about it in the student newspaper-The Fulcrum. They hope to start publicizing it during the coming baseball season.

Still agree with CB that it is a nice little stadium that is being under-utilized.

Let's be honest about some of the things cited in recent posts.

Yes, there is a current tenant at the 10,000 seat, 16.5 million dollar baseball stadium (1995 dollars) that was built to house Triple-A baseball and had been considered the best stadium on the circuit at the time.  They are called the Fat Cats (how appropriate), they play in front of fewer than 2000 fans a game, they participate in the Intercounty Baseball League (IBL), they have no major league affiliation, they pay total rent of $108,000.00.  It's nice that locally grown players have somewhere to play when they are older than 16, but this hardly seems like an appropriate sole-use for such a facility.  It would be tantamount to rebuilding Lansdowne and only having a tenant like the old Bootleggers.

GC

A common mis perception is that the developer plan has no risk to the City.

It is exactly the opposite.

For every dollar of cost over run the developers are guaranteed an 8% return by the taxpayer. Where can you or I get a guaranteed 8% return on our money?

The developer proposal will cost the City $488M (after financing) of which only $85M will be paid by the developers in profit sharing, so a cost to the taxpayer of $403M.

The Conservancy plan will cost the City $228M (after financing).

Clearly the cost and risk to the taxpayer is greater with the much more expensive and complicated developer plan even if the Conservancy plan doesn't bring in a single penny.

GC

The Conservancy plan calls for a $98M City investment into the park. For that the City gets a world class stadium by NBBJ ( The budget for the South Stands by NBBJ is $10M more than that by OSEG, and yes the budget includes a fortified North Stands with new seats, electrical and mechanical and retail space) , $15M in landscaping for the Green space ( over $2M per acre), $10M for heritage restorations on the Coliseum and Horticulture Buildings and their re-use as retail space.

The $98M also includes $10M in fees and contingencies as well as $1.7M for a Concert Shell and $5M for an outdoor pool and pavilion.

The entire park is designed and built for under $100M and with 110,000 sq ft of retail space and perimeter surface parking will be easily accessed and attract tourism.

And no you don't need towers and ten story commercial or private homes to make the site a success. How come? Two reasons. 1. Mismanagement by the City from 1973 to present day is the reason for the downfall of the site since from 1888 to 1973 under nonprofit management by the CCE the site always returned a profit to Ottawa. 2. Granville Island is living proof that a properly scaled site with no structure taller than three stories and with perimeter surface parking and with a philosophy of promoting local growers and local small business ( no large chains or conglomerates) not only is the site attractive but business thrives, and tourism is incredible.

So in a nutshell the $98M cost of the Conservancy is $228M financed.

The OSEG plan financed will cost the City $488M.

The Conservancy literally could not make a dime over the next 40 years and it would still be less expensive for the City of Ottawa.  

Sheridan - The compromise I am referring to is Lansdowne being sold off versus Lansdowne being a park.  

I am not convinced that the Conservancy plan will produce the financial benefits being touted.  It lacks credibility. All costs fall on the public for construction and maintenance and if the financial model presented is inaccurate then the taxpayer will be left holding the bag.  All risks fall on the city.  The Melnyck plan does not address the crumbling infrastructure at Lansdowne.  So, we have costs involved in building a stadium in Kanata but we still have the mess at Lansdowne Park.   The mess at Lansdowne will still cost money to maintain but it will increasingly become an eyesore and a disgrace to Ottawa. The city does have a responsibility for maintaining its assets. Doing nothing is not an option.

GC: What do you mean by compromise? Watson wants to cut bus service/routes, yet he has done nothing to reduce the bureaucracy (wage increases, consultants and overtime). The infrastructure costs (from sewage and road to a new rapid transit system) seem impossible to control. So too, with Provincial healthcare costs (and drastically increasing with an aging population). As well as Federal spending increases (especially defense spending under these Tories). Nothing is decreasing except the size of my savings --the Ottawa taxpayer is under siege from all levels of government.  

At least we agree that the city has to set priorities. Fixing transit should probably be this council's number one priority. Will a stadium therefore be a top priority? With the court challenge by FOL, we shall finally discover the full cost of the OSEG deal. Council will have to decide whether we can still afford this stadium (i.e. keeping to Watson's 2.5 percent increase). If not, then the stadium will have to be deferred to a later date, unless either: 1) someone in the private sector is willing to share in the cost of a stadium; 2) Watson is willing to make cuts to other city spending: projects, programmes or staff; or 3) Watson is willing to raise taxes beyond his promised level. Indeed, there are better financial models than OSEG, like the Conservancy or Melnyk's stadium, but even these require a serious financial commitment from the city. Where is the compromise?  

Paul R

If you had understood the parallel between Granville Island and the Public Governance model being put forth by the Conservancy you would understand that the objective is to not have any taxpayer cost.

You rant and complain about not wishing to spend any money on Lansdowne Park and when a suggestion comes up that shows you how to do it you complain about that too.

May I suggest you read the financials and philosophy of the Conservancy found at www.lpc-cpl.ca

Paul Ryan,  I will commend you on your articulate defence of your position.  It's nice to see that occur once in a while.

However, I still believe that you are doing a very poor job of defending some of your enormous assumptions. For instance, it is entirely and completely unreasonable to assume that many or most proponents of city-building do not have mortgages etc.  That would only be a reasonable assumption if financial self-interest was everyone's primary motivation in forming their opinions.  And believe it or not, many people truly are able to look beyond the impact on their personal finances when reaching their conclusions on these issues.

I would also point out that your suggestion that the propertied classes (of which I am decidedly a mortgage and daycare paying member) should somehow have a greater say in this debate is really quite offensive in an 18th-century elitist sort of way.  I didn't realize that there were still people who believed that democracy should be pro-rated based on the size of voters' tax bills.

Your misstatement of the day lies in your characterization of the baseball stadium as "empty".  It acually has had a rent-paying baseball team as a tenant for over a year and is also open to youth baseball.  There have been several proposals submitted for other profitable uses including higher level baseball and,  as you point out, the soccer dome in the winter.  That hardly seems a wasted investment.  Even if it is decided that those and other proposed uses are not viable, the City could always decide to sell it off for development (I assume that you like that idea), more than recouping its initial investment.  Where is the loss there?  

However the biggest fallacy in your argument is the manner in which you liken the sports complex to the "dream" of a special interest group.  In reality, this will be a facility that benefits a huge portion of the population of this city to some extent or another.  

Yes, sewers and transit are important, but this is also an important piece of civic infrastructure.  And one would think that preserving a piece of existing civic infrastructure, particularly one that is very well-used even in its decrepit state, would be a sound financial investment for the city.

No one is suggesting that Ottawa is not going to be sustainable if it doesn't fix up its stadium.  The federal government will always ensure that there is a base of well-paying jobs.  What I am suggesting is that cities are already competing with each other for talent, and it is amenities like a modern stadium and arts facilities that help to give a city that competitive advantage.  No question that wi-fi zones, as you mention, are also in that category.  However, as with wi-fi zones, public sector involvement is almost always required to get these capital projects going.  Cities that fail to invest wisely will ultimately face a decline relative to cities that do.

While Ottawa will always have the public service advantage, it will nonetheless suffer if it isn't able to attract the professionals and entrepreneurs and artists necessary to build momentum divesify its economy.  Sewers and well-paved roads aren't going to be enough for that.

GC says "Paul Ryan - Let's be reasonable here. etc"

Pretty good post

JE Martin says: "kg it would be nice to keep the talk on lansdowne. perhaps you could start a new thread called "paul ryans rant"

Paul says: Since this thread began on March 21, you have posted 21 times promoting your Conservancy plans and touting an alternative to the Lansdowne Live development that will approximate Vancouver's Granville Island. I have posted 15 times since March 22 challenging any substantial public expenditure on this site.

It seems that you were OK during my criticism of the Lansdowne Live proposal,(the enemy of my enemy is my friend) but as soon as I clarified my equal distaste for your 'cockamamie' scheme also to be financed from the public purse, you're begging to have me shut down.

I guess you feel there's not enough room on this virtual soap box for the two of us, so your response is to silence my argument. Must be interesting conversation in your house at the dinner table.

Paul Ryan - Let's be reasonable here.  We cannot mix every problem that this city has with the renovation of Lansdowne Park.  This decision has nothing to do with bilingualism, no matter how legitimate your concerns about this are.  Furthermore, we cannot just say that there are other priorities.  There are always other priorities for everything.   In making civic decisions, we have to show balance.  This is how you establish priorities.  When you establish priorities, you also have to consider opportunity.  The city took advantage of a bus purchase because there was an opportunity to purchase them at a discount.  We now have an opportunity to renovate Lansdowne Park with the cost at least partially offset by the annual cost of maintaining the park, which will be assumed by the partnership.  You cannot ignore this aspect and just say that the city is paying for the new stadium.  Yes it is, but they are saving on park maintenance for the next 30 years.  This too impacts your property taxes in a positive way.  We also have to understand that Lansdowne Live represents a compromise.   Your position of just selling off Lansdowne Park will be totally unacceptable to vast majority of Ottawans including myself.  You are essentially giving up total control of this valuable piece of property and what will you end up with? Condominiums, retail and office space and more congestion anyways.   This offers no respect to the surrounding community at all.  I can understand your concerns about your property taxes but some of our property taxes have to go towards amenities. Not everything can go to sewers or transit or amateur sports.  Just remember, however, that Frank Clair stadium will also be used for amateur sports including the University of Ottawa Gee Gees and likely far more often than professional sports.  Why is it that you totally oppose having a facility that can handle national and world class events when we know that this will inject millions into the local tourist economy?   Why do you oppose having a facility that will bring money into the centre of the city?  Do you not want our downtown area to continue to thrive?  

You have every right to have your views, however, you represent a small minority.  The redevelopment of Lansdowne Park has to follow more moderate viewpoints.  

This is far more than just the return of CFL football.  And CFL football will impact more than the 2% of the population who attends games.  Just like the Senators, there are far more citizens watching the games on TV than can ever go to the games.  This impacts more than Lansdowne Park.  It affects local television ratings and sponsorships, radio likewise, and local bars and restaurants.  It encourages people to spend money locally and this is good for the city economy overall. Most of all, it has a positive impact on civic pride. You may not care, but it does.  Just remember the affect of the Senators going to Stanley Cup final.  There were similar celebrations when Ottawa won the Grey Cup back in the 1960s and 1970s.  

Paul Ryan is making JE Martin look like a reasonable person with compelling ideas.

I guess that puts things in perspective a bit.

kg

it would be nice to keep the talk on lansdowne.

perhaps you could start a new thread called "paul ryans rant"

Sean Hogan quoted my earlier comment "I moved here twice because this is a great city to live in and raise a family." and nicely quipped "Well shame on us for letting you come back the second time." Well done; I do admire a well turned insult. The closing line "Hope to see you at the CFL games...that is unless you're off in your Carly Simon "You're so Vain" dreamworld." was a trifle weak but I'll give you kudos for trying for a big finish. That line only rates a C+ for effort.

Sean said: "As for your comment "and I have been in nearly every town and city across the country."...take your pick and we'll all pitch in for bus ticket to your 2nd favourite city...it's people like you (replace "people" if you really want to know how I feel) in this city who hold back progress."

You'll be pleased to know that I replaced your reference to "people" with the description "intelligent, articulate, provocative, 'extremely handsome' contributor and just wanted to say thanks for the compliments, most of it came from my mother's side of the family.  

Real progress would be investing in turning the whole city into a wireless hot spot, implementing a city-wide program of supervised amateur sports for our young people, not mortgaging the future for a couple coats of paint and some new bleachers for a pro sports team that few residents are interested in supporting. 16,000 fans is less than 2% of the City's population ..... we may as well build a public bath house.

I keep hearing nonsense about city building and the threat of losing our youngest, best and brightest who will flee if we don't repaint the football stadium and build a new shopping strip at Lansdowne Park.

First, I'd like to say that the greatest impetus for our best educated to flee this City is the lack of job opportunities for anyone not fluently bilingual. Spending $170 million to put lipstick on that pig at Lansdowne Park will not even vaguely influence a unilingual English graduate who cannot get a job interview for anything remotely suggesting upward mobility. Spending a pisspot of public money on public works like the new Convention Center and the proposed upgrades at Lansdowne may create more service jobs, but after four plus years and a boatload of personal debt, finding a job making beds or working the night desk in the hotel industry, or slinging beer and fries in the bar & restaurant business isn't much incentive to hang around waiting another 25 years for the new Riders to make the play-offs.

There are continuing suggestions by the supporters of the Lansdowne Live proposal that this is a boring place that needs public investment like this to make the City sustainable. This ignores that we already built a baseball stadium that lies empty, and the football stadium has not had a CFL team for 12 of the last fifteen years but the City has grown all the same. During the same period, private investors built two major waterparks, numerous golf courses, and a fantastic hockey arena.  Maybe that's why we were just named the best city to live in Canada for the second year in a row.  www.ctv.ca/.../moneysense_ottawa_070503

The City's ten year capital plan estimates a need for about $5 Billion in tax supported capital spending on everything from the new transit tunnel, the rest of the overall rapid transit plan, water and sewer improvements, equipment and building replacement. I know the sewers don't seem sexy but ask the people from the west end communities like Glen Cairn, or consider cost of correcting sewage overflow into the Ottawa River.

That $5 billion will have to be financed by the 376,000 taxpaying households in Ottawa. At only 5%, the interest costs alone will burden taxpayers with an additional $250 Million per year before we start paying down the principal. This means home owners will be faced with an additional $1000 per year on their property tax bills, while apartment dwellers might be faced with only a $500 increase.  Remember, this is completely separate from the annual 2.5% increase factored in for the base taxes the bulk of which goes for bloated city salaries. It's nice to know that in 2010  400 cops and 300 firefighters joined the other 300 bureaucrats earning more than a $100,000 per year.

If you're living in an apartment in this city, property taxes are less than $1500 a year so an increase may not seem like a big deal. But my bungalow costs me more than four times that ( I need to earn $10,000 a year just to pay my property tax bill) and I'm getting tired of listening to every special interest group demanding more services that will cost me four times as much as they are prepared to pay for the same item which I never asked for in the first place. Before you get your shiny new stadium, perhaps I'd like a sidewalk, or streetlights, or city water and sewage, or a even a bus that comes closer than eight miles to my door. Suggestions that I want low taxes couldn't be further from the truth ....... I simply don't want escalating property taxes to drive me out of my home.

It's hardly unreasonable of me to assume that many of the proponents of "city building" don't have mortgages, day-care costs, or the burdens of raising a family while the bulk of their income goes to paying taxes to support everybody else's dreams but their own.

For the record, while I have been clear in my distaste for publicly funding the renovations to Frank Clair Stadium, I am no less opposed to any cockamamie scheme to turn Lansdowne into another imitation Granville Island on the public dime. Any attempt to funnel taxes from a private development will be at the expense of other obligations of a higher priority. As I have stated earlier, tear it all down and sell it off to the highest bidder with the greatest ongoing residential revenue generating potential. Stop competing with the shops on Bank Street and the existing shopping center on Riverside & Bank.

"This model is available and you will learn more about it at the end of May."

So I guess we can't have the RFP now anyways if the Conservancy proposal will not be ready until the end of May.  Is this Conservancy Proposal Version 9.63 ?  Perhaps we could have an RFP on Conservancy proposals only.   Which version will win?  

"This model is available and you will learn more about it at the end of May."

Aw, cripes, again???

Paul Ryan

I think you are a little late to the party. You type a good keyboard but you offer no answers, just complain. We have plenty of those and they are not helpful.

A stadium of some form is coming at Lansdowne, so may as well get used to it. The CFL franchise is coming whether OSEG builds the stadium or some other proposal builds the stadium. FIFA is coming and that is a city committment so may as well get used to the idea that a stadium at Lansdowne is on its way.

Having a stadium at the park is not the problem for your hard earned tax dollar if you play smart. Building the stadium within a public governance board allows the park to be professionally managed and a zero cost to taxpayer mandate.

So if you are going to invest in the stadium and park then you don't have to follow a financing plan that diverts the returns to private interests, you can use the returns to pay off the investment and promote a beautiful place as a tourist destination and a site that promotes and supports our local business people.

Smart development, without towers, ten story commercial and without private homes or underground parking and a self financing model.

If the Granville Island Trust can do it in Vancouver (10 million annual visitors) we can do it here and bring in at least 1/3 to 1/2 that number.

Think of Lansdowne like Granville Island with a stadium and green space and self financing while promoting tourism and local business.

Beautifully scaled and with a proven financial model for the site and our City.

This model is available and you will learn more about it at the end of May.

therapists says: "Paul Ryan: Whenever you seek an ugly comparison, you always seem to turn back to them."

Back to whom? Francis C. and Spencer C. ?

I didn't even know they looked alike but I guess I'll take your word for it!

@Paul Ryan:  

What would you do with Lansdowne?  

Ask me the same question and my answer would be simple.  Sell the property.  I would also like to see many city services privatized, but that is another topic.  

Paul Ryan says:  "I moved here twice because this is a great city to live in and raise a family."

Well shame on us for letting you come back the second time.  You've made it very clear you don't support the football stadium...super.  You are one vote...the citizens of Ottawa have spoken at the last election with a clear message to those on city council who did and didn't support Lansdowne.  If it were really that contentious an issue then there wouldn't have been the landslide win for the pro Lansdowne side.  As for your comment "and I have been in nearly every town and city across the country."...take your pick and we'll all pitch in for bus ticket to your 2nd favourite city...it's people like you (replace "people" if you really want to know how I feel) in this city who hold back progress.  Hope to see you at the CFL games...that is unless you're off in your Carly Simon "You're so Vain" dreamworld.

"There are many things that make Ottawa a place to come to."

Are quality sewers among them?  ;-)

Paul Ryan, thanks for the "bread and circuses" reference.  It at least explains why your concerns seem to go almost nowhere beyond your personal tax bill.

I guess the real disconnect here is that a lot of people on this board think of themselves as more than just taxpayers.  When you suggest that supporters of this project are to asking other taxpayers to pay for their "whimsies", you are being condescending and fundamentally misunderstanding the arguments being made.  It is not just about football, though I can see that such gross over-simplification of others' arguments makes it easier to dismiss competing views.  

The argument for collective action of this nature is a city-building argument, not a football argument.  Yes, government can concentrate on the basics and keep your taxes down.  And Ottawa can continue to be a nice, quiet place to raise a family.  It can also continue to loose its best and brightest young people to other places that care about city-building and not just about taxes.  It will also continue to lose professionals and entrepreneurs and others looking for something more than a mediocre city with mediocre amenities.  Which of course will ultimately impact your property tax bill, just not quite as quickly.

Those of us arguing against you want a great city with great amenities, and feel that the City has an important  role in creating some of the public spaces and facilities that help build that city.  You want low taxes and are quite happy to accept mediocrity as a trade-off.  Not the most compelling vision in my view.

Paul Ryan: Whenever you seek an ugly comparison, you always seem to turn back to them.

Francis C. says "Imagine where we'd be if we had to leave Ottawa every time we wanted to attend an event? Some people need to learn to think before they pound randomly on their keyboards."

Spencer C says: "No fun is to be had in Ottawa, only working, sleeping and being quiet. If fun, joy or frivolity of any kind is to be had it should be at least 100km from Ottawa's city limits."

From 2006 until 2002 there was no CFL team playing in Ottawa yet somehow the town survived and the population grew. Since 2006, there's been no CFL team playing in Ottawa and somehow the town survived and the population grew.

City entrepeneurs have built arenas, waterparks, golf courses on their own dime and thrived yet CFL football is in perpetual need of a handout. Well why stop there? Let's whine and stamp our feet until we get our own zoo, our own marina, our own ski hill .... it's just not right that we have to drive all the way to Camp Fortune. The City should build a dog racing track and a motorsports park in the green belt and while we're at it a dedicated theater venue for a permanent Cirque du Soleil performance ...... why should we be expected to go to Las Vegas when we can simply get other taxpayers to pay for our fleeting whimsies.

Francis C. says "The numbers came from official sources, not 'made up' numbers that you obviously revel in creating yourself. The fact is, the Grey Cup is a HUGE injection of money into the local economy in addition to the added employment and national/international exposure it gives the city as a tourist destination."

You're right, what was I thinking, the government would never provide anything but the absolute facts and the CFL wouldn't dream of fudging the numbers to make the Grey Cup look bigger then it really is. I'm surprised they didn't take credit for the sun shining since their calculations of the economic impact were no less relevant.

"Bread and Circuses"  In context, the Latin phrase panem et circenses (bread and circuses) identifies the only remaining cares of a Roman populace which has given up its birthright of political involvement. Here Juvenal displays his contempt for the declining heroism of his contemporary Romans. Roman politicians devised a plan in 140 B.C. to win the votes of the poor: giving out cheap food and entertainment, "bread and circuses", would be the most effective way to rise to power.

"… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses." (Juvenal 100 AD)

JFFournier says: "I'd just as soon find ways to make this a place worth coming to."

Paul says: So would I, but that starts with things we can afford after we have addressed the basic infrastructure needs like transit and sewage treatment. Those big ticket items will cost our taxpayers several billion .... who do you think is going to pay? My property taxes are already costing $556 a month.

There are many things that make Ottawa a place to come to. I moved here twice because this is a great city to live in and raise a family. In 1987 I moved here with a young family and lived here for ten years. In 1997 I moved to Winnipeg and lived there for ten years and in 2007 returned. Each time it was simply a transfer, no promotion, no raise, simply a move to enjoy the quality of life here. This is a great City and I have been in nearly every town and city across the country.

As for your earlier suggestion that I at least know the basics, that the $170 million is for the "WHOLE PARK", just about "NONE" (this time emphasis is mine) of that cost would be occurring if it wasn't being promoted as a necessary real estate development to pay for a failed stadium.

"mummy, I want a pony" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, I want to go Disney World!" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, I want Nintendo like I saw on TV" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, I want a Playstation like Billy has." .......... I hate you!

"mummy, how come we don't a swimming pool like Jimmy's family?" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, I want an X-Box, every-one has got them!" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, how come we don't have a cottage at a lake like Jason's ?" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, I want my own computer" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, our van sucks, why don't we have an SUV? Don't stop in front of the school, you'll embarrass me." .......... I hate you!

"mummy, I want an Ipod" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, how come we don't have high speed internet like everybody else?" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, I want a cell-phone like every-one in class" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, can I have a motorcycle?" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, I need an IPhone" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, I need an IPad" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, please I'm ashamed to be driving your old car, I need my own with a good set of rims" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, all the guys are going to Florida on March Break, I only need a thousand bucks!" .......... I hate you!

"mummy, I don't understand why the mean people won't pay for a new football stadium, the old one was gross, that's why nobody went there."

......... I hate them

I see Lansdowne Park as a very vital and fun space.

I see an EXPO like atmosphere, with buskers and musicians, outdoor theatre in the park, pro sports and world events at the stadium, many interesting places to eat with locally grown produce available year round, an outdoor pool with small water park for children and full time training lanes for the serious swimmer, a horticulture area where we can have a working garden adjacent to the Farmers Market, shops and boutiques with local store owners promoting our area and increasing the quality of life for our region by promoting the local innovative business. There will be continued concerts in the arena and at the outdoor concert shell. There will be wine bars and cafes and a local micro brewery.

All of this fun and creative space in our Lansdowne Park.

A park for everyone and to bring all our rural and urban dwellers and visitors together in a unique place and one that is public, vibrant, truly unique with heritage structures in their original locations and at a site scaled for the human experience and that supports Ottawa business and growers.

A great place for summer concert series, jazzfestival, the new start and finish line for the Ottawa Marathon, winterlude and the Tulip Festival. All of these fun events that need a unique place that is open and spacious and 100% public for the enjoyment of present and future generations. Self financing and keeping the profits local with a zero taxpayer cost mandate.

If Vancouver can do it with the Granville Island Trust that has developed a world class site with a 30 foot height limit, surface perimeter parking, and employs hundreds and has millions of visitors and all with zero taxpayer cost then we can clearly do it in our Nation's Capital.

Vital Lansdowne Park and with all profits used to pay off the starting investment. Yes to a stadium, yes to a green space, yes to a vibrant location, yes to local business and yes to a zero taxpayer cost mandate.

No towers, no private homes no ten story commercial buildings no underground parking and no hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate welfare and corporatization of our public land.

Develop smart and support local business and a stadium.

RFP now.

Let's get it done and let's get something we can be proud of!

No fun is to be had in Ottawa, only working, sleeping and being quiet.

If fun, joy or frivolity of any kind is to be had it should be at least 100km from Ottawa's city limits.

"I'd just as soon find ways to make this a place worth coming to."

Definitely. Imagine where we'd be if we had to leave Ottawa every time we wanted to attend an event? Some people need to learn to think before they pound randomly on their keyboards.

"its a big world out there but you might actually have to cross the green belt to enjoy its wonders."

I'd just as soon find ways to make this a place worth coming to.

Steve Q et all

I believe in proceeding wisely, and part of that is an old expression about not counting your chickens before they are hatched;)

Now back to reality and away from the politicking.

We have a lot of great of suggestions as mentioned about what people in the Ottawa area would like to see at their Lansdowne Park.

As previously mentioned we have great suggestions of a local brew pub, a water park for the kids (near a full pool would be ideal), an outdoor concert shell, bike/roller blade rentals, bakery, wine bar, cafes, skateboard park, sports store, local arts and crafts,.....the image of a place that brings in the local store owners for our park and a place for locals to do well and promote local produce is a very strong one.

Let's keep those ideas rolling in and feel free to post here instead of by email!

@Paul Ryan: Obviously you can't read, or you just don't want to acknowledge the cold hard facts. The numbers came from official sources, not 'made up' numbers that you obviously revel in creating yourself. The fact is, the Grey Cup is a HUGE injection of money into the local economy in addition to the added employment and national/international exposure it gives the city as a tourist destination. The official numbers don't lie, unlike your ridiculous 'computations' and unrealistic assumptions.

Believe what you want JE Martin. Serious retailers will be contacting Trinity.  You can bet they will not be contacting you.

Nothing wrong with posting retail suggestions in Ken's blog.  I have sent an email to three companies that I believe would be a good fit. Much to my surprise, all three replied.

Francis C. quotes some numbers from a City of Ottawa promotional page optimistically speculating potential income from an upcoming Grey Cup game with no back up to support how they were determined.He then quotes a CFL promo page which claims laughable numbers about the 2009 Grey Cup, ignoring the CFL's vested interest to lard the figures as they annually swindle federal, provincial and municipal tax dollars to support the Grey Cup festivities.

The promoters enjoy talking about "economic activity" which would be meaningful if the local citizens buried their money or spent it all on internet porn as opposed to attending a CFL game. The only relevant numbers in this argument would be attendance and expenditures by out of town visitors.

Using the City of Toronto's detailed analysis of the financial impact of the 2007 Grey Cup  www.toronto.ca/.../grey_cup_2007_eia.pdf  it can be determined roughly half the spectators were from out of town and they spent about $$550 apiece during their visit, including the tickets. Presuming that the newly renovated stadium plus temporary bleachers provide 30,000 seats, that suggests about 15,000 out of towners for an Ottawa Grey Cup. That will generate about $9 million in new dollars for the city once every ten years. (We'll ignore all the net adjustments for players salaries, kick back to the League office, income taxes, etc)

So let's knock a million bucks off the annual loss of $9 million that I broke down in an earlier post. I suspect that you didn't attempt a detailed rebuttal of my earlier posting because you ran out of fingers and toes.

I repeat that this is a bad deal that comes at a time when the city has much higher spending priorities.

GC says: "While Regina can have CFL football, Ottawa cannot?  Why can a city of 200,000 do it while Ottawa at 1.25 million cannot?"

Paul says: Because enough fans in Regina care enough about CFL football to support the team whereas Ottawa has proven twice now in recent times that it does not.

GC says: " Ottawa would have never got the Senators or Scotiabank Place with this kind of thinking. "

Paul says: Bruce Firestone and a few limited partners purchased the franchise and built the stadium on their own dime without any taxpayer support and the citizens of Ottawa have continually supported the franchise since.

GC says: "So you don't want football, you don't want soccer.  You want to kill the 67s and you are happy that the Ex is gone and likely never to return."

Paul says: I don't want to spend $170 million to prop up a temporary CFL franchise. I enjoy football ..... NFL football. I also clearly support amateur soccer and feel disgusted about the cavalier treatment of the dome at Frank Clair stadium and certainly support its relocation to the Lynx Stadium. I also said that I would support more expenditures for organized soccer and softball at local neighborhood venues. The 67's are a private venture; I don't watch them anymore, I'm a Sens fan so frankly, I could care less what happens to Jeff Hunt as long as I'm not asked to subsidize his income. Meanwhile, I never said that I was happy the Ex was gone, I think that was a tragedy brought on by the the unscrupulous deal to sole source the site and blow all all our future tax dollars propping up a CFL team that will once again not prove to be financially viable. I said that I had no sympathy for Glebites who complained about the noise Lansdowne.

GC says: "Yes, go out of town for football.  Go out of town soccer.   Go out of town if you want to go to the beach.  Go out of town for all major concerts like it used to be.  On and on."

Paul says:  I'll still have to go out of town to watch an NFL game, or to catch a Broadway show, or Montreal's Comedy festival or dozens of other attractions from professional baseball to whale watching. Perhaps you'd like me to pay next pay for a marina and a zoo since Ottawa is larger than Niagara Falls or Winnipeg.

Its time to man up and start paying your own way .... its a big world out there but you might actually have to cross the green belt to enjoy its wonders.

Steve Q

Actually the park belongs to the public or did you not realize that?

I for one believe that citizens have a right to have real input about the park they own and never be put into the position of deferring to a corporation.

So where were we......

What would you like to see at Lansdowne Park?

JE Martin: I would imagine anyone wanting to provide goods or services at Lansdowne should be contacting Trinity Development.  They appear to be responsible for this aspect of the project.

I did not notice plans for a water park during the Urban Park discussions.  Anyone suggesting we need one should consider the large water facility located next door at the Lansdowne Community Park  It is unfortunate that local residents demanded the city not touch the Lansdowne Community Park as there were plans to upgrade.  Perhaps in another 50 or 100 years.....

Folks, forget about all the politics for a moment if you can.

There is going to be some form of retail/services at Lansdowne Park. Personally I would like to see great promotion of local small business that has lead to the incredible success of Granville Island in Vancouver.

What types of stores, services would you like to see? Please drop location or building just what types of things would you like at the Park?

So far we have micro brewery, sports store, restaurant with fresh local ingredients, skateboard park, bike/rollerblade rentals, water park for the kids, wine bar, cafe, bakery..........

Keep em coming!

@Leo B Doyle: My speech during the public consultations at our local community centre was shown on CTV news and neither the reporter nor the cameraman asked my permission or "identif(ied) themselves (to) grant people the courtesy of knowing that the event is being recorded for broadcast or webcast purposes."

It's called freedom of the press.

JCDUBE: Here are your numbers:

www.ottawa.ca/.../innovative_prosperity_en.html

From the City of Ottawa (Under 'Promoting Global Presence'):

"In 2004, the City supported Ottawa's reputation on the national and global stages by:

Co-hosting, in partnership with the Ottawa Renegades Football Club, the (2004) Grey Cup at Lansdowne Park, providing an estimated $50 million economic boost to the City of Ottawa."

That's in 2004 numbers too. My estimate of $53 million revenue generation in 2014 is very conservative. By comparison, the 2009 numbers from Calgary:

www.cfl.ca/.../grey-cup-a-financial-boost-for-calgary

"The four-day festival saw over 121,000 fans in attendance with 46,020 attending the Grey Cup Classic at McMahon Stadium. An estimated 32,000 fans in attendance over the course of the festival were from out-of-region, and their spending, in combination with expenditures made by the 2009 Grey Cup host committee totaled $35.3 million. These expenditures generated an estimated $81.0 million in economic activity for the province of Alberta, of which $61.0 million occurred in the city of Calgary."

It's ridiculous to try to eliminate the revenue brought in by Grey Cup as an 'exceptional event'. The city would be hosting the game every 10 years roughly. You can't eleiminate an economy injection of that magnitude.

As for your last comment, the management of the Ottawa Rough Riders in 1996 was the exact same management group that left the CFL hanging to pick up the bill in 2006, NOT taxpayers. The only thing that taxpayers missed out on was the rent revenue from the team which only backs up my previous statement that we need a main tenant for the stadium in order to guarantee a minimum level of income.

As for Paul Ryan, I was going to provide you a detailed rebuttal until I realized that your statements were not grounded in any sort of reality whatsoever, but I will offer this: Through my taxes, I support many types of social programs that I do not use, but I recognize that it is for the greater good of my city - Ottawa. Lansdowne Live is another example of my future taxes going to support something for the greater good of Ottawa, and I GLADLY support it.

Wow that was the whiniest rant I've heard in a while, which is impressive considering the bar has been set so high by the FoL.

Now the media is conspiring against them too. LOL!

It's a public meeting, if you want to act like a spoiled child be prepared for others to see it.

I attended the Thursday, March 24 meeting at the Ottawa South Community Association Hall. I was curious to know who was videotaping the event and I asked by both Capital Ward Councillor David Chernushenko and the senior manager from the City's planning, who was in attendance. Neither of them knew who the videographer was. The videographer was positioned stage right to the presenters and one might have assumed that it was being taped by the consultants to record public feedback. The video equipment was consumer calibre, not professional broadcast equipment with identifying logos for a media outlet.

I only learned that it was the Ottawa Citizen's video camera, when I asked the camera operator, who told me - defensively - that it was a public meeting. Fair enough, I thought, but strange that there was no declaration that it was being recorded for public distribution.  Strange that the senior City manager, who was responsible for the meeting didn't event know.

Professional media organizations usually identify themselves and grant people the courtesy of knowing that the event is being recorded for broadcast or webcast purposes.

Indeed, last week on a flight to Calgary I sat next to an old friend who is a producer for CTV's W5. He was travelling on assignment and told me that professional ethics in journalism now require even investigative journalists to call you in advance to let you know they're coming to Calgary with a camera.

I guess these aren't standards that the Citizen applies to itself.  Indeed, given the Citizen's insistence on attacking the Friend's of Lansdowne, who seek to exercise democratic rights to free speech and access to the rule of law, it's not surprising that their practice of journalistic ethics are found wanting.

It's a bit like the whole Lansdowne process itself. Many people feel they have a right to expect fair, transparent and open processes from the City, but that's not what they're getting. Many people think a rich G8 capital city with a parcel of land adjacent to a UNESCO World Heritage site should think big, long and hard about how that land gets developed. But that's not what we're getting. We're a drab mall, a white elephant stadium and patch of grass that has "Great Lawn" in its name. How sad.

Meanwhile, if the Citizen is so interested in openness, perhaps it will join the Friends of Lansdowne seeking answers about the full and real costs of this sole source deal with the Friends and Funders of the Mayor.  

I am sorry Chris B but what you have to say has nothing whatsoever to do with anything  I said in my post.

Saying that the rest of the city should not be barred from watching the stream of the meeting has nothing to do with saying that the people at the meeting shouldn't have their say. Nowhere did I suggest that and neither did anyone else.

They had their say and I actually think JC Dube was off the mark in that I believe that a lot of the people who spoke up would not be at all  displeased to have an audience and the bigger the better.

I am sorry Cassandra, was not all of Ottawa invited to the meeting? And, in any event, I think this was specifically a meeting to get neighbourhood input because common sense says that the heaviest users of the park will be the local neighbourhoods. I know it is for ALL of Ottawa, but the people living nearby will be most affected. Or should people living near to something get no say at all?

The live stream is not Steve Q's it is from the Citizen who provided it yesterday  as a service for those who wanted to see the presentation. It was not something filmed by Steve

After all the shouting about transparency and openness it is more than hypocritical to attempt to censor this meeting and deny access to whoever wishes to see , first hand what went on with the meeting as well as what was presented.

After all this is a project for all of Ottawa and not just for the 25 people in that room. This was meant to be a learning session for the attendees and for the presenters as well as the audience at home.

That we were treated to the same sullen negativity and grandstanding as at the earlier  consultations around town is hardly a surprise,, and certainly does not mean that those who are interested in the project should not have the right to see it.

The behavior of many of the people there may be an eye opened for some, but as I mentioned earlier, not to any of us who went to the previous consultations.

The difference this time is that they were more polite as  there was no heckling and screaming at the presenters, no bullhorns and so on so their

behavior was actually much more civil than what we were treated to before.

And the main point of this consultation is to see some of the working plans for the Lawn. We all have interest in that and should not be blocked from seeing it.

Sorry to disappoint you JCDUBE, but the livefeed is not my creation.  You can find the link on the Ottawa Citizen website:

www.ottawacitizen.com/.../story.html

Then click on "Replay: Thursday's consultation on Lansdowne"

"..... lots of retirees who would love to have better than shopping malls to sit, meet and walk around....."

JCDUBE, I know many retired individuals and none of them hang out at shopping malls. The ones I know volunteer at the Ottawa Humane Society, Shepherds of Good Hope, Salvation Army and many other worthy charities.  They bowl, babysit (including my kids) and contribute to the community.

Not one retiree I know wants to sit on a bench at Lansdowne and do nothing.

Ken: Steve Q's livestream brings nothing to this debate and I am sure that the people attending the meeting were not told that they would appear on your blog. I wish that you would remove the link. Please.

GC:  I agree with you.  Want to see the grumps, frowns and glazed over faces?  Check out the Great Lawn meeting last night.  The Ottawa Citizen has a video of the event on this link:

http://livestre.am/FU9e

There are a couple of individuals worth noting in the video, but I will heed Ken's previous warnings about libel and let you pick them out.  

John:

Lansdowne Park should be FUN PLACE for the kids, a RELAXING PLACE for older adults and a GREAT PLACE for everybody in between. Just as much the Rideau Canal Skateway attracts people from all over Ottawa, Gatineau and the area, Lansdowne Park should be a crown jewel that identifies Ottawa as the Capital City of Canada.

Lansdowne Park has been a municipal park for 140 years. Lets keep it that way. Tear down the south end stadium and let a renovated FC stadium be seen and appreciated from a World Heritage UNESCO site, the Rideau Canal, and let the canal be a focal point to be also seen and appreciated from people watching amateur and semi-pro sports in the stadium.

Ottawa has only one main industry, the government, and lots of retirees who would love to have better than shopping malls to sit, meet and walk around. So, put in greenery and flowers and paths and lots and lots of benches.

Have a water park for adults as well as kids. Most of our beaches are polluted anyway. Let people come from all over to cool off and picnic in the summer.

Forget the curling rinks. They are just a lame pretense for shuttle bus parking.Put in a skateboard park that would double as winterlude slides.

Leave the Coliseum and the Horticulture Hall building where they are. Have a micro-brewery in the Coliseum and shops and restaurants in the Horticulture. The Aberdeen should be used for concerts, rock bands and a meeting and gathering place

Tear out the tarmac and let the park breathe and the citizens of Ottawa enjoy.

Paul Ryan - What incoherent thinking.  So the answer is that if we want any fun events, we leave town?  What does this say about Ottawa?  While Regina can have CFL football, Ottawa cannot?  Why can a city of 200,000 do it while Ottawa at 1.25 million cannot?   Ottawa would have never got the Senators or Scotiabank Place with this kind of thinking.  And by the way, sending the 67s to Scotiabank Place would kill the 67s.  The 67s succeed because they are in a central location and are not 100% competing with the Senators.  

So you don't want football, you don't want soccer.  You want to kill the 67s and you are happy that the Ex is gone and likely never to return.  

Sounds like you enjoy expensive southern vacations that many of us cannot afford.  And you want us to make expensive out of town journeys to enjoy practically anything.  You know those 4 expensive beaches in Ottawa can also be closed to save the maintenance costs and turned into condos too.  That would be beneficial to the taxpayer as well.  Maybe we should do a cost assessment on all the parks in the city and consider closing all the museums and arts facilities.  They cost tax money as well.  

Yes, go out of town for football.  Go out of town soccer.   Go out of town if you want to go to the beach.  Go out of town for all major concerts like it used to be.  On and on.  

Let's confirm the reputation of Ottawa as the 'town that fun forgot'.  After all, fun costs money.  Go elsewhere if you want fun.  Ottawa is where all the cheapskates live.  Look at those frowns and glazed over faces.  This is what we should all look like.  

Ottawa, the city of grumps.

So it was announced today on the radio that the Friends of Lansdowne are going to appeal the decision if it is not favourable to them.

This is so good news.  There will be no CFL, no Grey Cup, no FIFA World Cup in Ottawa.  

Congratulations!  

This is money and time well spent to prevent the citizens of Ottawa from enjoying National and World Class sporting events.  

I well let the Friends of Lansdowne supporters ramble on and on.  They have nothing better to do.  

Lets work with what we have at the moment folks.

A stadium is coming, so is some form of greenspace, some form of retail and some form of new management at Lansdowne Park.

Let's put a positive spin on things here.

What types of business would you like to see at Lansdowne Park?

Some great suggestions have been:

a local micro brewery/pub,

a water park for the kids ( like at Granville Island not like at a theme park! )

a sports store in the North Stands

bike/roller blade rentals

restaurant with fresh ingredients from local farmers on site

Lets see what we can come up with!

I love sports, I love rock 'n roll, I think the Ottawa Ex is a local tradition that marks the end of summer more definitively than the change shacks on the canal.

I have no sympathy for Glebites that grouse about the noise and traffic from the EX, concerts and sporting events. They should have thought of that before  moving in; these traditions have been in place longer than their local residency.

I object to spending such a tremendous amount of money on a football stadium when this City has proven twice in ten years it will not support a CFL team.

If the GeeGees want a stadium, spend a few bucks on bleachers for their own field, better yet, take the seats from Frank Clair Stadium since we're not using them. Move the soccer dome to the old baseball park to take advantage of the infrastructure there. Let Jeff Hunt rent space out at Scotiabank place if his 67's are that profitable or the Jim Durrell Arena if they're not.

How could anyone believe that high rise condominiums or apartment buildings could be more of an eyesore than the backside of that concrete monstrosity we have now? Forget about a new park ...... the existing site has been covered in broken asphalt and crumbling concrete for so long, that the developers will need to use the existing astroturf from the playing field to meet minimal green space obligations elsewhere on site since its doubtful the tree huggers will allow any fertilizers to be used on that hardscrabble soil. The proposed apple orchard slays may me.

If you football fans want CFL football, catch a bus to Toronto or Montreal every other week-end, I'm not stopping you. Turn on your TV and watch the Riders or the Stamps if you despise the NFL ...... nobody is stopping you.

I like the beach and a warm sun in February, do you football fans mind sending me and my family a cheque for our trip down south each year? But wait now, not only do you not want to pay for our trip, you want us to cancel our flight because our disposable income is supposed to be diverted to pay for your football stadium.

Hardly seems reasonable, does it?

Francis C says: "The numbers that the CFL will bring in is much more than any other event. In addition to the regular games, the Grey Cup (originally granted to Ottawa for the 2014 match) will bring in an estimated $53 million to the city. "

Let's say for the sake of argument that the new CFL football brings out an average of 18,000 per game times ten home games a year and let's pretend they squeak in an average of one extra home play-off game per year. How many of those seats are sold to out of towners and I don't mean someone driving in from Kemptville and driving home right after the game.

You might pick up a bus load or two of people for a Montreal, Hamilton, or Toronto team and maybe a few people from Smith Falls or Kingston might make the trip. But don't expect many plane loads from out west. Let's be optimistic and hope for 1000 out of towners per game, keeping in mind that six of those home games will be against western teams who won't have many fans in the stands that are not already living in Ottawa.

Let's do the math: 1000 (out of town fans) x 10 (home games) X $300 apiece for hotel, restaurants, and bar bills = $3 Million per year (gross new economic activity). Everything else is changing four quarters for a dollar. If Joe Blow from Nepean spends $100 for a seat, some beers and a hot dog at the stadium, that's a $100 he doesn't have to spend at a local water park or movie theater, or restaurant.

Now the $3M in new revenue looks pretty good until you examine its composition. Since the wheat for burger buns, barley for beer, beef for the steaks, distilleries are not located in our city, it's safe to presume that about $500,000 worth of supplies will be imported but that still leaves $2.5M in new money until you remember we are all unwilling partners with the Feds and the Province so let's presume 25% of that will ultimately disappear into some form of income tax so we'll be lucky to clear $1.8 M per year of new money coming into the city right? That still looks more profitable than just about every other scheme the politicians come up with.

Not so fast though. With no less than 50 american players, coaches and hangers on from the US and probably twenty Canadian football players from out of town it's safe to presume that no less than 80% of our new football team's salary cap will be destined for people who don't actually live in Ottawa and probably stay here for no more than a quarter of the year spending their money.

What would that math look like? $5M payroll X 80% non-resident player salaries X 75% of it taken away back to their families/hometowns = $3M net dollars taken out of the Ottawa economy. That doesn't look too bad but wait there's more.

As proposed, the City will be expected to pay about $7.5 M per year over forty years to cover its $117M debenture. It has been paying less than $2M per year to maintain the existing site (that's why it is so run down) but that $2M went into local pockets for the maintenance so the costs more or less recycled in the City. This new $8M will be going to financial institutions outside the City and represents an absolute net loss to trade within our local trade zone.

So how is all this adding up? We look like we will gain $1.8 to $2.0 million per year from out of town purchasers but we forfeit $3M in cash for salaries leaving the City and a further $8M in financing to outside investors. That looks like a net loss to the pool of available cash in the City of about $9 million annually.

With ten teams in the league, a Grey Cup is likely to come this way once every ten years. Suggestions that a Grey Cup generates $53M in new economic activity are somewhat disingenuous.

Of course, I'm ignoring the additional costs of constructing a new trade exhibition building at the airport, the value of the lands granted to the the EX out on Albion Road, or the ultimate cost of honoring the contract for the soccer dome relocation. Or the risk of cost overruns before the project has been completed. Never mind the consequences of another failed CFL football experiment since the City taxpayers put up the capital and if it's successful Jeff Hunt get's richer, but if it isn't, taxpayers are on the hook ....... no differently than we are now with the doomed Lynx stadium.

Is it any wonder that I reject this deal exclusively on its financial merits?

Francis - I think youhave it backwards - Lansdowne doesn't need the [Riders] to exist, but the [Riders] need Lansdowne. I think if you offered any property developers in the world the opportunity to build what OSEG is proposing WITHOUT even being burdened with a money losing CFL team, they would jump on it.

And I say money losing because most CFL teams - even the succesful ones - lose money or barely break even.

I agree with you that if we have a Frank Clair stadium, we need a major tenant. As I have stated many times, soccer is not going to cut it (I just read that all the minor soccer leagues in NA are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy because the four big draws have all left - Vancouver, Portland, Puerto Rico and Montreal next year). It was great seeing 12K in there for a GeeGees playoff game, but I saw most of their games attendance, and it was about 1K. You only get a soccer tourney once every couple decades.

So the conclusion is that we are rebuilding Frank Clair at the scale we are doing so solely for the CFL. Every other use, except for 6 soccer games at a World Cup, only requires a much smaller stadium.

Francis C:

Can you back up your statements with real numbers?

How about profit and loss statements for the stadium for the past 30 years with itemized rental revenues?

Leave out the Grey Cup: that's an exceptional event.

Don't forget also that when the Riders folded, they owed BIG MONEY to Ottawa taxpayers.

Folks, let us try and stay positive.

The CFL group with Jeff Hunt at the lead and backed with John Ruddy, huge football fan and supporter, Bill Shenkman a great person to have for soccer football plus the support from Roger Greenberg an avid athlete and lover of sports is terrific and in place.

The timing is good for the CFL. TSN numbers are up and profit sharing from that rvenue through the CFL is also up , salary cap is low and there is great rivalary potential with the Als, Argos and TiCats not to mention the new "villains" with respect to the name Sask Roughriders. ( How about the Ottawa Raftsmen/Chaudiere?)

We are getting a stadium, that much is a given. The CFL will make a great tenant. FIFA events will be a blast and I foresee a great soccer program at the park (keep the Soccer Dome there!) starting with NASL.

The green space is a given.

What needs to be determined is the most affordable way to do this and the types of business/service we would like to see on the site.

My personal favorite is something similar to Granville Island, not too over developed and a variety of interesting stores, activities, pubs, restaurants, etc...

How high do we want it to be. As we have seen from the huge success of Granville Island three stories is the max height and there is a Trust that manages the operations of the site so that it does not cost taxpayers anything, all profits are re-invested back into the site and kept local.

So how about it?

Creative ideas, Suggestions?

"So we don't get a CFL club? So what?"

That's a HUGE so what. I can't believe this needs to be repeated for the umpteenth time but Frank Clair stadium needs a main tenant in order to guarantee the site a minimum level of income. The numbers that the CFL will bring in is much more than any other event. In addition to the regular games, the Grey Cup (originally granted to Ottawa for the 2014 match) will bring in an estimated $53 million to the city. While I also support FIFA U20, CIS football, concerts etc at Frank Clair, their revenue generating numbers cannot match that of the new Ottawa Rough Riders. Hopefully JCDUBE, you will refrain from marginalizing the CFL from hereonin.  You and the rest of your 'Friends' know full well that one of the key success factors for Lansdowne is predicated on the CFL.

JCDUBE: I really like a lot of your ideas. However, let me return to Ken's basic question regarding the source of interest in this subject. I think that voters have become upset by being played by politicians, time after time; now we are not willing to take it lying down. Mayor Chiarelli treated voters (and most councillors) like little children, even keeping us in the dark about city business (especially the LRT details with Siemens) so we finally threw him out of office. With O'Brien we expected someone who would be smart and frugal, but moreover transparent. When O'Brien did not live up to his billing, we rebelled. So, I think we need this court challenge to give us a fresh start. I know GC is vehemently against this, but there is no alternative. I do not think that Watson will take your initiative, because he has stated that he supports OSEG, and that everything is on schedule.  

Spencer C:

"Imagine having a Beau's Brew Pub next to the stadium, the place would be packed"

You are absolutely right!

And the Coliseum is right there waiting for such a tenant. The City spent $1.7 Million in 1995 to renovate the place and added a fancy entrance on the south-est corner facing the stadium. The place is big enough for a mini-brewery, a pub, a band stage and dancing floor and a south-facing patio in front of the stadium. What more can you ask for?

The very best brew-pub in the area  is Les Brasseurs du Temps in Gatineau   ( I mean it!). It's in a 150 years old stone building that used to be a mill.

With the  U-20 and womens' FIFA games coming in 2014 and 2015, the city should hire a property management company to fix the stadium ASAP and spruce up its buildings at Lansdowne Park. The entire park should be a money maker 12 months a year and there is no need for Larry O'Brien zany concept to make that happen.

We have a municipal stadium that has been so neglected by city management and by ill-advised bedget cost-cutting that it is now unsafe to use.

So, let's fix it!

The playing field is used practically 12 months a year with soccer and other sports. Last night, there was a Saudi Club tournament.

So we don't get a CFL club? So what?

There are lots of soccer fans in Ottawa and Gatineau that could probably fill up our municipal stadium just as well and probably more often than CFL football.

And, what about lacrosse and ultimate frisbee and track and field and many other sports and entertainment events. The Horticulture Hall building could go back to being a curling club, or indoor tennis, or a fitness club, or climbing...you name it! Right now, it's just used for storing mostly CCEA junk that could just as well be stored in a barn in Leitrim. Both the Coliseum and the Horticulture have dining halls and kitchen that would be fantastic for wedding receptions. The City has been missing out on a lot of income with Lansdowne Park. That means that Ottawa taxpayers have to more taxes to compensate.

Beau's Brew Pub at Lansdowne Park? Fantastic idea!  

An interesting feature at Granville Island is the kids water park, an idea neatly expanded upon at the outdoor pool and pavilion and dancing water elements being put forth by the Conservancy.

Fun ideas folks!

Keep em coming.

From the PPS or Project for Public Spaces about why Granville Island works:

Why It Works

Granville Island would not likely win any design awards. In fact, the amount spent on architecture, landscape design, materials and construction seems to be the minimum necessary. Despite this, the island boasts a strong and appealing aesthetic and what amounts to a very bold and successful design concept. Minimalist and metal sided, each of the islands buildings is given an understated charm and an unmistakable identity through painted color, through allowing the internal use to flow out of the structures and through some of the best signage anywhere in world. The public spaces are tied together by painted piping seemingly left from the islands industrial roots, by the absence of curbs and by the pull of the islands many destinations strung together by amenity clad walkways.

Granville Island's lessons are that great places can be created almost anywhere under any conditions with minimal expense. Given its isolation Granville Island had to succeed not only as a series of great places, but as a great district. It has succeeded, not by focusing on a coherent master plan or a theme park like design integrity, but through maintaining its flexibility as it has grown institutions, business and places from within -- serving a broader and broader set of users. Certainly, its becoming a top draw for tourists in North America and also increasingly functions as a day-to-day community place for the burgeoning population of high-rise dwellers in downtown Vancouver. Whether you are a tourist or a local, Granville island offers something for you, and a new experience every time you go back.

Phil P

I actually thought the reference to the 6M  litres of beer by locals was guite funny! Not everything needs to be taken so literally ;)

The point being that if you look at the reasons for success at Granville Island you will not see any new structures taller than I believe 3 stories, including the hotel.

A properly scaled environment that promotes local and innovative business and has plenty of room to move about is the key to success and with no need for underground parking.

Follow that theme and you will do well with ideas for Lansdowne, local micro brewery included!

@Phil P I know right? Vankleek Hill is great and all but they need an Ottawa location to really break out.

Imagine having a Beau's Brew Pub next to the stadium, the place would be packed.

I'm really looking forward to the opportunities that local businesses can take advantage of at the new Lansdowne.

Spencer, don't let go of that Beau's idea.  An in-town location would be incredible.

John, that is an interesting statistic.  However, the Granville Island Brewery is not part of the Granville Island Market, so I'm not sure what that has to do with your point.  The brewery, along with the theatres, art school, hotel etc. are amongst the intensive mix of uses that make Granville Island a unique urban environment and a tourist draw.

Adding to the silliness of your argument is the fact that the main brewery moved to Kelowna years ago.  The vast majority of those 6,000,000 litres that you speak of are brewed in Kelowna and distributed through BC Liquor Stores.  None of that has anything to do with the Granville Island location.  Sometimes Wikipedia research has its limits.

@Steve Q I was pleased to hear that as well.

This is what good projects do, they involve as many people as possible. You can never please everyone (clearly) but you try your best.

Greenspace, flowers, curling, arts, football, hockey, soccer, retail, restaurants, residential and commercial, a little something for everyone to ensure a vibrant space that is not just busy on a game day.

I'm really looking forward to Whole Foods as well, I'll make a trip down weekly just for that.

I might even have to consider one of those townhomes on Holmwood.

Positivity.

Spencer C, Steve Q and GC and Paul Ryan and JFF

There appears to be room for consensus here.

A stadium for pro sport, green space and local small business and places to promote amateur sport and recreation are all a good middle ground.

The stadium of course is the most expensive part of the investment but there are ways to make it work.

The only really contentious area are the high rises, private homes, underground parking, ten story commercial buildings and heritage and environmental issues.

Collectively there appears to be good opportunity here to examine a proposal that satisfies the City need for a stadium, the popular demand for green space, promotes local and innovative business, has easier surface parking (that can gradually be phased out as car use diminishes).

It may be time to work together on a hybrid proposal that is better financially for all of us and lets the site revenue pay off the investment and that does not overwhelm this treasured and very unique space in the heart of our Nation's Capital.

Thoughts, suggestions?

@Spencer C:  

The opportunity to tend the proposed Lansdowne Orchard seemed to appeal to  people.  I noticed a twinkle in the eyes of a few older ladies who seemed thrilled with the idea.  

See folks, something for everyone.  Shame on those people trying to stop this project.

Phil P

The Granville Island Brewery as an example sells 6,000,000 litres of beer a year.

If that comes from the immediate surroundings the Australians would tip their Akubra's to them :)

Tourism however is the more likely reason for the success of the market who love coming to a low scaled environment that provides unique locally innovative products and service.

I'm happy to see that local Glebe residents were impressed and excited by the presentation last night on the front lawn project.

Just goes to show that the malcontents are a very small, vocal minority.

If anyone knows the Beau's guy please pass along the brew pub idea.

Positivity.

"If we were building more soccer and softball pitches, more skateboard parks, and promoting city organized and supervised youth amateur leagues, I'd be in support of the expenditure in a minute. But when it comes to spending this kind of money to seat a few robust derrieres for ten games a year, I suggest that you would be better served by taking advantage of our growing ultimate frisbee leagues and watching football on a big screen at your local drinking establishment."

What an arrogant attitude.  It is my way or the highway.

This is a city of almost one million people.  Not everybody is young enough anymore to play soccer or ultimate frisbee and I have no interest in watching the NFL on some big screen TV.

What  a big city needs to make it great is a diversity of attractions.  

So you don't support bringing the Women's World Cup to Ottawa?  

Do you not know the impact of bringing big time sports to the community?  It increases excitement for the sport and it increases participation.  

All you have to do as look at the Montreal Alouettes.  Football as a sport was dead in Quebec but when the Alouettes achieved some success, football participation at all amateur levels increased dramatically.  I have no doubt that Toronto FC is having a similar impact on soccer participation in Toronto.  If you have good role models at the professional level, you gain at  the amateur levels as well.  World class events like the Olympics and the World Cup will have the same impact.  Just look at the result of Canada's gold medal achievements in women's hockey.  Now we have a great interest in women's hockey at the grass roots level.

So, you can look down your nose at the fat derrieres at Lansdowne Park but there are kids also there dreaming of their future and there are even more watching on TV thinking that they may be the next stars.    

It is a very sad statement to say that if you enjoy professional sports you should be watching the Montreal Canadiens, or the New York Yankees or Dallas Cowboys or Boston Celtics with no connection to Ottawa.    

John, if you think that you can separate the success of the Granville Island Market from all of the development that surrounds it, I guess there is no point in discussing further with you.  

Paul Ryan, I'm not sure why you have this obsession with young apartment dwellers.  Do you have any evidence that supporters of this project tend to be either young, or live in apartments?  Or do you just find it easier to stereotype those who disagree with you to discount their views?    I can assure you that I am neither young, nor an apartment dweller, so perhaps you will take my comments more seriously now.  

I note that you continue to promote fallacies with statements that we are spending this money to seat "a few robust derrieres for ten games per year".  No one would ever suggest that a stadium used 10 times per year is a good investment.  That is not the case here.  As has been pointed out to you, the stadium and arena will be used for university, amateur and recreational sports on far more dates than it will be used for football.  To complain about ten dates per year is to ignore all of the people who participate in and benefit from those events.

Chris B -

I'm sad to hear that you believe the new Lansdowne will be similar to the Trainyards development.  Obviously you are unfamiliar with the details of the OSEG partnership.  You may want to check the Lansdowne link at Ottawa.ca for details.

The position of the Conservancy is to promote local small business including micro breweries.

At the Granville Island Market in Vancouver the GIB or Granville Island Brewery started in 1984 by one person, Mitch Taylor.

In 2005 Andre Peller wines of Canada bought the company bringing in a vintner to the mix. The Brewery  went on to introduce many local brews and in 2006 the GIB won six medals at the World Beer Championship. That same year the business expanded including investing $1M in a beer making facility to keep up with demand. The Brewery was then bought again in 2010 bu Creemore Springs that in turn is owned by Molson Coors Canada.

A great local success story of Vancouver and in particular Granville Island Market and demonstrates the power of promoting local business.

Paul, the part I'm tired of is those kinds of attendance numbers not having any sort of context applied to them.

There is an entire generation, perhaps two, who not only have never seen a quality football product in Ottawa, had very little reason to believe there would be one in the forseeable future.  Yet the team was still able to attract the numbers you list.  Combine poor service with poor product and this is what you get.

Regardless, to assume that the next team will fail is to judge Jeff Hunt by the actions of others.  I'm quite confident that Mr Hunt will not use a Mardi Gras promotion (on Canada Day) to draw fans, for example.  He's already stated that he'll work to draw the Gatineau fans as well, something the Gliebermans could not be bothered to do.

People expect all fans to flock to games "no matter what" but people have a breaking point.  You might love Cajun food, but would you go to a Cajun restaurant with poor service and a poor product regularly year after year?

It might also be worth noting that during the first three years of the gteam's existence, they had the 2nd highest ticket price for a non playoff club in a league where 6 out of 9 qualify.

Therapists:" I don't see what the career aspirations of today's youth have to do with the democratic process surrounding the redevelopment of an aging stadium, but go ahead, please explain. And I get criticized for not sticking to the point...."

Like so many opponents of the proposed Lansdowne Development, my primary concern is as a home-owning taxpayer who is already stuck with crippling property and water taxes. My comments relate to a personal observation that the developers seem to have whipped up support for their maneuver to take a prime public asset and build revenue producing properties that benefit themselves from the traditional fan base for professional football. That's young white males either attending university, still living at home or in an apartment with no real  financial stake in the consequences of the increased tax burden due to such unnecessary investments.

Yes, I'm aware that such stereotyping is not politically correct and some of you will be frothing to point out your personal knowledge of exceptions to the rule. Just look at any old pictures of Lansdowne's stands and you'll understand which demographic stands to benefit from a new football stadium. That's why the Alouettes moved from playing in the big Owe to McGill's more intimate university football field.

I keep hearing from young people who scream every time the cost of their bus fare is increased by fifty cents (even though taxpayers subsidize more than 50% of total transit costs) about how we need to invest in things like the Lansdowne Live proposal, the new transit tunnel to keep our city interesting and growing. I want this, I want that, but I want someone else to pay for it. My comments suggest that if young adults find this city boring, they take advantage of their youth and go see the world instead of asking their parents to bring the world to them as have come to expect their entire lives.

Meanwhile the media in this City, particularly the print media has a vested interest in supporting a revived  professional team because of the accompanying advertising opportunities.

I'm not a member of FOL and have never commented publicly on this issue before but I am one of many, many, many cash-strapped homeowners wondering how we are going to pay for this kind of stuff. If that patch of pavement which has been nothing but a monstrous eyesore for years, offers the chance to generate some capital and ongoing revenue to support more worthwhile initiatives like the new transit plan, that's where our energy should be focused. We have to keep cutting basic services like snow plowing and transit while paying for these sorts of terrible investments.

Look at that empty baseball stadium; look at that empty football stadium that couldn't attract a replacement for the Renegades but now we're to presume that the fans will return because someone changes the seats?

If our politicians weren't so intent on leaving monuments to themselves, they would have rejected this plan and any other attempt to salvage this asphalt and concrete eyesore that doesn't generate the maximum investment return to general City revenues. We are already probably the greenest, most parklike major City in North America and I have as little sympathy for those that promote this site as an "urban jewel on the canal" as those that want to entrench a white elephant of a football stadium.

If we were building more soccer and softball pitches, more skateboard parks, and promoting city organized and supervised youth amateur leagues, I'd be in support of the expenditure in a minute. But when it comes to spending this kind of money to seat a few robust derrieres for ten games a year, I suggest that you would be better served by taking advantage of our growing ultimate frisbee leagues and watching football on a big screen at your local drinking establishment.

Spencer C said:

"I am so tired of responding to uninformed opinions like those of Paul Ryan so I'll just say this.

The Ottawa CFL team routinely attracted 20,000 fans even after not having won a playoff game in over 25 years. Fans were never the issue, ownership was."

I presume that you meant to say "well-informed facts" from people like Paul Ryan.

On May 5, 2005 Ottawa's other newspaper quoted Renegades CEO John Lisowksi " ......  revealing what he says are harsh and ugly truths that help explain why pro football isn't working in Ottawa."

Lisowski, however, said that actual paid attendance was 16,300 -- which was up from 15,800 the year before.

"All the rest were comps," he said. "We papered the house because we couldn't get people to buy tickets."

"I'm tired of the lies."

The biggest misconception of all involves season ticket numbers that were portrayed to be in the 12,500 neighbourhood last year. He said the actual number was 8,700, up from 8,300 in 2003.

With training camp just four weeks away, Lisowski said the Renegades have about 4,300 season tickets sold for 2005.

Here were the sad facts:

2003 season tickets -- 8,300; Average game day -- 7,500 Average attendance -- 15,800.

2004 season tickets -- 8,700; Average game day -- 7,600; Average attendance -- 16,300

With 4300 less season tickets sold in 2005, the team was doomed.

Six years later with even more distractions like the internet, console gaming, and the ubiquity of all the other electronic entertainment the likelihood that a football core fan base has grown in this city is pretty unlikely no matter how much you would like it to be so.

Phil P

The parallel that I used to describe the market philosophy of Lansdowne Park as being put forth by the Lansdowne Park Conservancy was to point to known similarities with the Granville Island Market, (not Granville Island).

As mentioned the philosophy of the Granville Island Market and the market or retail philosophy for Lansdowne Park as being presented by the Conservancy share the viewpoint of promoting local business and local growers. In both cases there is no high density at the Granville Island Market, all buildings are low in scale. The very pertinent fact of 10M generated tourist visits with low rise development (two story average, same as the Conservancy) and no towers or large commercial is the very clear point being made.

I believe your misunderstanding stems from mixing in Granville Island with Granville Island Market.

With respect to brewery, that is something you brought up, and as you will see from my point on a brewery at Lansdowne Park I said it would be supported if it was a local business ( see my comments at 12:56 this column )

........"There is nothing preventing a local brewery at Lansdowne Park ( local business) and local restaurants and shop owners and pubs and artisans are exactly the mix of client the Conservancy Supports and promotes."

One suggestion that may assist you is to try and see the merit of a suggestion and read the posts carefully, reacting to something written just for the sake of argument is not constructive and something I try and avoid.

The over riding concern over Lansdowne is to seek a working balance between development, history, heritage, tradition and best bang for the buck.

Can towers and high density be successful at Lansdowne? Possibly.

Can those items be located elsewhere? Definitely.

Are there better financial models to examine at Lansdowne? Without doubt yes!

Are placing towers and high density at Lansdowne the best use of this special site in our Nation's Capital? Now that is the question that needs to be carefully answered.

Our position is that this special site deserves something unique, and that means precluding towers, private homes and large ten story commercial structures.

Preserving the heritage and traditions of the site and keeping the 150 year public trust for the benefit of the next generations we believe is a very worthwhile pursuit.

@Steve Q - you can get the OSEG lansdowne experience at Trainyards. SO that is your problem easily solved.

Granville Island is listed as one of the outstanding public spaces in North America. I don't see any shame in aspiring to figure out what makes it succesful.

I'd love to see Beau's open up a brew pub at Lansdowne.

From now on I'm only going to say happy things about Lansdowne, like the presence of more local beer options.

John, you are a very hard target to debate.  First you said that density was not necessary to create a vibrant space.  Then you cited Granville Island as an example.  When I point out that land use on Granville is quite intensive, and surrounded by density, you ramble on about other similarities, including perimeter parking (parking is actually dispersed throughout Granville).  Not a word about your original density argument.

For the record, the "local" brewery that you refer to is owned by Molson.  

JCDube-Thank you for proving in such  convincing fashion that my assertion about the same old malcontents mouthing the same old tired objections is dead on.

Dragging the city through the court has provided the Fol more time to come out with a full court PR press in the hope of somehow stopping the case from actually come to a hearing where they may find themselves holding the bag.

It has also afforded you another opportunity to go on and on about about Rosen and Assoc. when in fact the firm was retained by the FoL and arrived at conclusions using the FoL parameters. In any case it is up to the court to decide if it has any bearing on the case at all.

That the FoL are upset because they object to sole source contracts was clearly displayed by their impassioned objections to the recent bus purchase, with angry marches and rallies and ...er....hmmm

That they are true friends of Lansdowne and its heritage is clear to anyone who can see how, over the years they insisted though their councilor Clive Doucet, in keeping the park in good repair and ensuring that the Horticulture building. to which they are so devoted, did not turn into a broken down storage shed.

Oh wait...

.

Steve Q

Hope to change your mind, particularly when you see the updated 3D illustrations of the stadium and park and most importantly learn how it will not affect your property tax.

Details will be made public at the press conference in April.

JE Martin:  

Nothing personal, but I do not support your proposal.  

If I want the Granville Island experience I will visit Granville Island.  If I want the Upper Canada Village experience, I will visit Upper Canada Village.  I'm looking for the Lansdowne experience and I like the OSEG proposal.  I would prefer to see the Front Lawn dropped from the plan, but hey, no one will ever be 100% happy.

Steve Q

If you enjoyed the mix of local vendors and restaurants at Granville Island then you would appreciate the same environment at Lansdowne.

This is the same approach the Conservancy is taking, following  the successful lead of the Granville Island Market, (including Public Governance Board) but offering local flavor and improving the overall offering (more space) and at better prices since we do not have to compete in a Vancouver rental environment.

The additional benefit to vendors at Lansdowne Park under Conservancy nonprofit management is that they will not pay property tax for the simple reason all structures will remain City owned.

This offers vendors an additional reason to wish to locate at Lansdowne with Conservancy Management due to lower lease increases which in turn increases the attractiveness to consumers who will benefit from lower prices.

Cassandra

It seems that you are one the one who keeps “mouthing the same old worn out and discredited” statements. In a discussion of this kind and importance, you should be able to show sufficient knowledge of non-refutable arguments instead of the constant and repetitive dissing of the opponents to the not yet finalized partnership between a municipality and private business.

The proposed terms of this planned partnership were not sufficiently clear last year and llawyer Steven Shrybman of Sack, Goldblatt, Mitchell LLP, who represents Friends of Lansdowne, hired Rosen and Associates of Toronto to do an analysis. This forensic accounting firm is one of Canada’s top independent litigation and investigative accounting operation. It is a reputable and highly respected firm.

Based on their initial analysis, of which I copied some extracts, Steven Shrybman asked the Ontario Superior Court to oblige the City of Ottawa to hand over documents that were critical for a proper analysis of what the City was engaging itself with taxpayers money and public property.

After a hearing and a concurring judgment in late January, the City took their sweet time to comply with the court order and thus the delay in the litigation. The documents that the City had to hand over are now being scrutinized by forensic accountants for a more thorough analysis.

This case is unusual and will probably create legal history in Canada because it involves a municipality apparently going into real estate, commercial and entertainment businesses with public borrowed money and public land.

Here are some extracts of the first Rosen report. These conclusions are preliminary because the said important and relevant documents related to the LPP were not available at the time. We’ll see what the second Rosen report will have to say.

“..the private sector partner appears to have the option of abandoning the project …  In contrast, the City intends to issue debentures, for which we expect it would be obligated to pay in full”

“The project’s financial terms raise serious concerns. … an analysis of the overall project cash flows clearly shows an imbalance of risks and benefits. The City will be expected to provide the majority of the required investment capital (including cash and in-kind contributions), but OSEG will receive the greater proportion of the cash distributions from the LPP.”

“ ... the PwC analysis (which relies upon the City and OSEG management figures) has multiple conceptual and technical deficiencies … As a result, the analysis is not reliable and tends to grossly misrepresent the probable financial impacts of the LPP to the City.”

“... the PwC Business Plans’ cash flow analysis is flawed. The contributions by the City …are not complete, which understates its investment in the project.  The expected receipts are overstated, which inflates the probable benefits of the project. Overall the comparison of cash flows is not reliable.”

“The report of the Office of the Auditor General of the City of Ottawa (OAG) on the LPP, dated November 9, 2009, should be interpreted with caution.  …We have identified several serious concerns regarding the LPP financial model, including errors in estimating cost savings and the incomplete analysis of cost contributions by the City.”

“...We are not aware of any basis or means by which the City will set aside property taxes from the LPP to service its project-related debt. ...  Consequently, we do not believe that it is appropriate to present property taxes from the LPP being dedicated (or solely used) to satisfy project-related costs”

“If property taxes are excluded from the City’s revenue neutrality calculation, participating in the LPP is projected to result in a significant net negative cash flow. Based upon our analysis, the City’s deficit from the LPP would range from $111 million to $208 million.”

Cassandra

It seems that you are one the one who keeps “mouthing the same old worn out and discredited” statements. In a discussion of this kind and importance, you should be able to show sufficient knowledge of non-refutable arguments instead of the constant and repetitive dissing of the opponents to the not yet finalized partnership between a municipality and private business.

The proposed terms of this planned partnership were not sufficiently clear last year and llawyer Steven Shrybman of Sack, Goldblatt, Mitchell LLP, who represents Friends of Lansdowne, hired Rosen and Associates of Toronto to do an analysis. This forensic accounting firm is one of Canada’s top independent litigation and investigative accounting operation. It is a reputable and highly respected firm.

Based on their initial analysis, of which I copied some extracts, Steven Shrybman asked the Ontario Superior Court to oblige the City of Ottawa to hand over documents that were critical for a proper analysis of what the City was engaging itself with taxpayers money and public property.

After a hearing and a concurring judgment in late January, the City took their sweet time to comply with the court order and thus the delay in the litigation. The documents that the City had to hand over are now being scrutinized by forensic accountants for a more thorough analysis.

This case is unusual and will probably create legal history in Canada because it involves a municipality apparently going into real estate, commercial and entertainment businesses with public borrowed money and public land.

Here are some extracts of the first Rosen report. These conclusions are preliminary because the said important and relevant documents related to the LPP were not available at the time. We’ll see what the second Rosen report will have to say.

“..the private sector partner appears to have the option of abandoning the project …  In contrast, the City intends to issue debentures, for which we expect it would be obligated to pay in full”

“The project’s financial terms raise serious concerns. … an analysis of the overall project cash flows clearly shows an imbalance of risks and benefits. The City will be expected to provide the majority of the required investment capital (including cash and in-kind contributions), but OSEG will receive the greater proportion of the cash distributions from the LPP.”

“ ... the PwC analysis (which relies upon the City and OSEG management figures) has multiple conceptual and technical deficiencies … As a result, the analysis is not reliable and tends to grossly misrepresent the probable financial impacts of the LPP to the City.”

“... the PwC Business Plans’ cash flow analysis is flawed. The contributions by the City …are not complete, which understates its investment in the project.  The expected receipts are overstated, which inflates the probable benefits of the project. Overall the comparison of cash flows is not reliable.”

“The report of the Office of the Auditor General of the City of Ottawa (OAG) on the LPP, dated November 9, 2009, should be interpreted with caution.  …We have identified several serious concerns regarding the LPP financial model, including errors in estimating cost savings and the incomplete analysis of cost contributions by the City.”

“...We are not aware of any basis or means by which the City will set aside property taxes from the LPP to service its project-related debt. ...  Consequently, we do not believe that it is appropriate to present property taxes from the LPP being dedicated (or solely used) to satisfy project-related costs”

“If property taxes are excluded from the City’s revenue neutrality calculation, participating in the LPP is projected to result in a significant net negative cash flow. Based upon our analysis, the City’s deficit from the LPP would range from $111 million to $208 million.”

JE Martin.  

Sounds like you are describing Upper Canada Village.  I'll stick with the OSEG partnership.  

By the way, I've been to Granville Island and I did enjoy my visit.  But it is far from paradise you describe.  One section looks like a mall food court.  I found the groceries very, very expensive.  In fact, I find the quality and prices better at Whole Foods, a store that I visit on a regular basis.

Phil P

The Granville Island comparison is very applicable.

The Vancouver site is roughly 10 acres of Market Area,(like the Conservancy at Lansdowne) has no high rises and uses perimeter surface parking (like the Conservancy) promotes local business and local growers (like the Conservancy) and the majority of people that come are visitors and locals, a great tourism site (like the Conservancy).

One great thing about the Lansdowne Park site is the additional benefit we can provide of an outdoor concert shell, large grow area, outdoor pool and pavilion for our hot summers and plenty of places to relax.

In winter outdoor skating rinks, winterlude, xc-skiing, sleigh rides, soccer bubble, tobogganing, and a full range of year round vendors and events, just like an EXPO, there will always be something going on and at a beautiful site.

A great resource for people to actually examine the similiarity of message and space between the Granville Island Market and the Lansdowne Park Conservancy can be see at http://www.granvilleisland.com

There is nothing preventing a local brewery at Lansdowne Park ( local business) and local restaurants and shop owners and pubs and artisans are exactly the mix of client the Conservancy Supports and promotes.

Local entrepreneurs and growers. Keeping the profits recirculated in our area and increasing tourism.

John, if you are going to try to argue that density is not necessary to create a vibrant place, Granville Island is quite a poor example for any number of reasons.  However, on the denisty point, it has a wide range of uses including a hotel, a brewery, a school of art, several theatres and numerous bars and restaurants, including chains like the Keg.  And it has little to no green space.  Quite an intensive use of the land.   Not to mention that it is surrounded by and across the bridge from extremely dense residential development.

Your other favourite example, Central Park, is surrounded by some of the densest housing and commercial uses in the world.  

Not exactly a compelling argument against the need for density.  Putting a few restaurants and vendors in the existing buildings at Lansdowne is not going to create a Granville Island.

It seems like the same old bunch of malcontents mouthing the same old worn out and discredited objections.

This is an important and exciting  project for this city and we can only hope that it can go ahead and the sooner the better.

The court case by the tag team match of John Martin(Conservancy nonsense) and FoL grinds on wasting the courts time and everyone's money.

The  lawyer for Fol is even now sorting through the piles of documents hoping to find during his fishing expedition, something to show that there was an actual legal basis for the case and that it was not just a delaying tactic while allowing the foL to keep up their shrill and tiresome PR  campaign.

Also he has to come up with something to justify  all that fund raising.

If the court finds it is a delaying tactic and the FoL are not successful in sticking the taxpayers with court costs, then we may see FoL paying out of their pockets for this selfish and reckless legal adventure.

The city and the rest of us will have paid more dearly however.

Shawn M -  Cost neutrality is all in how you play with the figures.  We can debate this until the end of our lives.  What's the point?  On the same basis used to suggest that cost neutrality cannot be achieved for Lansdowne Live, the same argument will apply to every other proposal.  This is why this argument is pointless.  There is a cost in building anything.   You may state that other options may be cheaper but that is awfully presumptuous.  It may cost more.  Even delay has a price tag as we are learning with the LRT project.  Regardless, this is not about the lowest cost solution.  This is an investment in a key urban site and the results will be with us for decades. This not about being the cheapest.  It is about being affordable.  It is also about what it accomplishes. You may disagree with both but this becomes a very subjective argument. This is not simply a dollar and cents issue.  

John Martin - Paint all the rosy predictions you want about the Conservancy.  Comparing it with Granville Island is nonsense.  That is a site unique to Vancouver. The conditions that made it successful are also unique to Vancouver.  Perhaps, it teaches us something but it is not directly translatable to Ottawa or any other city.  4,000,000 to 5,000,000 visitors a year?  Does our best tourist attraction, the Casino, have that many visitors?  And where is this footbridge coming from?  I know of no foot bridge to Ottawa South although one might eventually be built as part of Lansdowne Live.  We have just started talking about a foot bridge to Ottawa East but that is still years off.  Just remember that the Corktown bridge took 25 years to get built.  

GC

With respect to your assertion that you need density to have a well used site.

The exact opposite is true.

Quite simply people come to beautiful places.

Keeping the park in scale and with a balance of interesting shops, boutiques, markets, recreation, entertainment and sporting opportunities is how you attract people.

Think of Lansdowne Park as an EXPO and you will be closer to the reasons why the site will bring in many more people without density than a site with large towers and 10 story commercial buildings.

Think of Granville Island that has no towers or large commercial and has 10 million visitors per year and you will begin to understand the power of keeping a site properly scaled and supporting local business.

Like the Granville Island site, Lansdowne Park is also bordered on two sides by water and adjacent to a bridge. The Conservancy projects between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 visitors in the inaugural year of 2014, coinciding with FIFA WU20. The tourism returns to our City will be incredible.

Access will be easier since you will not have to service massive structures, people will have greater space to relax, and with the new footbridge from Ottawa South, a greater number of visitors will arrive by foot or bike.

Boat access will also be encourage during the summertime with the installation of floating docks by Parks Canada and allow the passing boaters to stop at a very pleasant and public park with a large variety of service and recreation and entertainment opportunities.

People want a destination environment that has an interest to them with something they can't find elsewhere, and that is the foundation upon which the Conservancy philosophy is based.

Beauty, space, interesting events, local business, artisan, locally grown produce, recreation, entertainment, sports, nourishment, the arts, these are

the essential ingredients of a well attended site.

And as Granville Island has ably demonstrated you make the site interesting with the creative imagination of your local entrepreneurs and people will bring the site to life.

A tired argument GC? please....It was used to sell the public on cost neutrality when that was an outright lie. People should be yelling from the rooftops about this "mis-speaking". It certainly changed the opinion of OTAG (despite their sometimes rambling commentary): communities.canada.com/.../otag-applies-its-strange-analytical-approach-to-lansdowne.aspx

The argument is a powerful one: Lansdowne redevelopment with this group of developers will cost you more as a taxpayer than other public options (stadium and football included).

John, you may be right that the CFL is not enough in and of itself to guarantee financial viability.  However, an anchor tenant is an absolute necessity.  Without one, the stadium will not get built, plain and simple.  These suggestions that the city will build a stadium for events as rare as te World Cup event are ridiculous.

Incidentally, speaking only of the base rent presents a bit of a distorted picture of the true financial significance of the team.  There are all sorts of other revenue streams generated by the football games (concessions, advertising, corporate boxes, naming rights) that would not be available otherwise.    

One more point.  The Friends of Lansdowne may publicly argue about cost neutrality but this is not a matter to be ruled on by the courts.  

It is a tiresome argument anyways, since most people understand that it costs money to achieve something worthwhile.

Moose - Well, that was my quote.  The fact of the matter is that city (and everybody else) has had almost 40 years to come up with a plan and nothing has come of it.  We even had a design competition in the latter 1990s and the results were dreadful.  

Oh, I am sure that there are other plans possible for Lansdowne but those magical solutions will have a price tag. We saw that with the front lawn competition.  You build expectations and you end up spending much more.

Reasonable consensus is hard to achieve on such a complex issue that is so contentious with such varied opinions.  I stand by my original statement.  I do not believe that we are going to find an overall better package than what we have on the table right now.  And worse, we can just end up with another endless 40 year debate.  And that is a perfect illustration of a lack of consensus.  

I have seen the Conservancy alternative and all the pretty pictures but I believe that it will leave Lansdowne as a dead zone with not enough to draw people except during sporting events.  We have a choice.  Do we want a vibrant Lansdowne or will it remain a dead zone?  I see it as the connection between Ottawa South and the Glebe, which will make it better than the sum of its parts.  You develop a critical mass and you can create something of similar scale and attraction as the Byward Market.

We can dissect any legal agreement and pick out 'hidden' clauses that we don't 100% like.  This is a problem when you take specific clauses out without taking into consideration the full picture.  These agreements are negotiated by teams of lawyers. It is part of a negotiation process.  They are very complex documents.  If we are going to have lawyers second guessing other lawyers, we are going to be going around in circles.  No negotiation will ever come to a conclusion.  In addition, with any negotiation, there has to be give and take.  No matter who we deal with, the city is not going to end up with a contract that is 100% favourable to the city.  We saw the impact of someone cherry picking clauses during the 2006 LRT debate.  It was a ridiculous way to discredit the mayor when it was a standard clause designed to protect everybody involved.    It worked as intended but when will we see LRT in this city?  If we are lucky, it may be delayed by only 9 years.  Of course, with a much higher price tag too and $36 million legal settlement.  This is an example of second guessing ourselves.  How will Ottawa ever be a great city when it continually second guesses itself?  At some point, something has to be accomplished.  40 years of indecision is enough.  

"i'm not sure why we shoudl do anything until we have a good plan,"

Which is exactly the problem!  Maybe your "good" differs from mine and that of hundreds of people.  So if we only proceed when everyone feels we have a "good" plan, we'll never get anywhere!

Those of us in favour see a plan with features geared towards locals AND features to draw people from other parts of town AND features to draw people from other towns.  So while I have little use for orchards and a curling rink, I support that part of the plan regardless.

I find that many people are unable to detach themselves from their own wants and likes.  They won't use a stadium so why have one?  They don't need a grocery store so Lansdowne Park should not house one.  That attitude gets us nowhere.

Ken,

The recent Citizen editorial on this was pure drivel. Extremely one-sided to not mention the transportation issues, privatization issues, revenue neutrality lies and civic display of uneasiness on this issue.

Phil P

Your comment that CFL makes the stadium viable?

You can't be serious. The plan is to charge the CFL team $300,000.00 per year on a $100M investment. They are only committed to 5 years as tenants.

It is so ridiculous to include rent from them that new Conservancy financials remove the CFL contribution since it will be that negligible and certainly not guaranteed.

Is a stadium good fun to have so that we can have FIFA events and hope to watch some pro sports there? Absolutely. But it must be regarded as an expensive piece of infrastructure only. No matter how you finance it it is no bargain.

To the comedians saying "Lansdowne Live is as close to a consensus as we will ever achieve.  It is already a compromise." i've seen a few folks trying to say that - that's akin to "oc transpo is the most reliable and complete service in the world" (yes i've seen someone say that), or maybe "choose the bullet or the plank". i'm not sure what lansdowne live should be compared to but the simpson episode where the slick salesman put in a monorail with the help of a song ( www.youtube.com/watch ) we know how that ended for the citizens ...

Ken, i think it raises 80 comments in a flash because tons of citizens are feeling ripped off. Some people take it to legal grounds, some just on ethical ground. The city has been very obtuse and we're tired of that. Some other citizens seem quite happy with the city proceeding that way as long as a stadium comes out of it, another shopping mall, they seem convinced something needs to be done to lansdowne regardless of if it's a good or bad plan (i'm not sure why we shoudl do anything until we have a good plan, i see no fire - show me a good plan and i'll jump right away though), and they're quite happy believing stories of tax neutrality (courts will clarify that one shortly - and no i'm not involved in that).

Over and over, oseg / city deal details have been turned up, hidden clauses, hidden or delayed information, etc.  all that info shows some bad clause or extra cost of the taxpayer (but many people like to ignore those - such as cost overruns attributed to oseg are actually paid by the city with 8% interest).

Is it too much to ask the city be honest and not lie in our face ?

Maybe if the city stated things honestly then we could kvatch about it and then we'd probably all converge.

Apparently Watson is happy being leader of such a mini-empire. RIght now it's not converging for a while, likely a long while.

Sheridan, I think where we differ is on how we are charaterizing the use of the Lansdowne sports complex.  I believe that it is a key piece of infrastructure for amateur sports, in addition to being a CFL stadium.  Much more time will be consacrated to university and amateur sports than to the CFL team.  

In my view, the presence of a football team that makes the facility financially viable does not render inappropriate the public investment in the infrastructure.  

​Paul Ryan, I suppose we could argue over who is a bigger sports fan and whether you've watched more live Sens games (kind of doubt that, as I'm a season ticket holder), but that is really not the point here.  My real complaint is with your dissing of the CFL to make your point, while playing fast and loose with the facts.  

For instance, despite 15 years of terrible teams, football attendance was never as low as the 15,000 that you claim it to be.  And where do you come up with your 7 games per season figure?  There would be a minimum of 10 home dates per year, plus playoffs.  At least try to be accurate in your criticism.

You may think that the CFL brings nothing to the city, but there are many people who do.  Personally I think that a diverse range of sports and cultural activities are critical to the city's quality of life, whether I personally partake in them or not.  On that basis, providing venues for such activities is a completely valid use of public money.

To respond to some of your questions and statements:

What other league has an "import" rule? - Pretty much every European soccer and hockey league with the exception of the English Premier League.  Are you saying that leagues with an import rule to develop local talent are somehow less worthy of support?    

How can you claim that I disregard the interests of other citizens? - I say that because you speak only of "7" CFL games per year and deem the project unworthy of support, while completely ignoring the multitude of other uses of the sports complex.  If pro sports are only representing 7 dates per year, then presumably the vast majority of the confirmed uses (university sports, junior hockey, recreational sports) are of the type that you would deem worthy of your support, so that doesn't really bolster your argument.

"Meanwhile it's obvious that my previous reference to electronic devices went right over your head" - I have to admit, it was incredibly clever, but eventually I was able to figure it out.  If you re-read my post, I was simply contending that it is a little disingenuous to compare the 100-plus years of CFL history to the "latest entertainment fad".  I still don't like your reference.

​"I'm also a taxpayer, paying nearly $7000 per year in property taxes and I've had enough waste from politicians and whining from apartment dwellers who contribute less than $1500 a year in property taxes through their rents." - I congratulate you on your expensive house, but I'm not sure how that entitles you to any more of an opinion than apartment dwellers, whatever they have to do with this.

"The City arbitrarily denied the owner of Scotiabank Place the opportunity to develop professional soccer at his expense by allowing this proposal at taxpayers expense"  - Again, a little fuzzy on facts.  Melnyk's plan included massive subsidies for the upper levels of government, and a land contribution from the City.

" Your absurd suggestion that this project will put $250 million into the local economy as it struggles to emerge from the recession completely ignores that non-residential construction in this City is at its highest level ever." - I'm not entirely clear on how it is absurd to suggest that building a $250 million project puts $250 million in the local economy.  Seems pretty straightforward to me.  And your tell-tale non-residential construction figures notwithstanding, I think that if you pick up a newspaper you will see one or two economists suggesting that this country's economic recovery is fragile.  A little government cost-cutting and Ottawa might appreciate the economic injection that this project will provide.

"I can't say strongly enough how I much resent paying for your dreams."  - That really is it in a nutshell.  You don't see the value, so you don't want to pay for it, regardless of the value others see.

You are of course entitled to feel that you pay a lot of tax, and that those dollars should only go to projects that you feel have value.  I don't agree with that viewpoint at all, but I could respect it more if it wasn't based on the types of factually questionable statements that you have been making.  

Ryan: You give examples of cities you label as 'vibrant', as if it's a bad thing. A city doesn't have to be big, I agree, but you really seem to have something against living in a city where's there's people doing things, hell, where a city is sustaining itself in the long-term.

Liking light rail is 'envy'? Seems the cities that implemented it are benefiting from it, so what's your opposition.

"They have those things and I don't want to be like them so I don't want any of those things"......Is that your reasoning. I would have thought efficient (not necessarily faster, but sustainable) transportation and culture and 'vibrance' would be something a city would aspire to.

Not in Ottawa, I guess. We're different . What, for the sake of being different? And hating every minute of it. Sounds like we come out on the bottom in that little game of spite.

Ryan: "Meanwhile at home, it seems too many noisy kids that are afraid to go out in the world and make it on their own"

I don't see what the career aspirations of today's youth have to do with the democratic process surrounding the redevelopment of an aging stadium, but go ahead, please explain. And I get criticized for not sticking to the point....

Your dog's urine and the fire hydrants, give that one a shot too.

I am so tired of responding to uninformed opinions like those of Paul Ryan so I'll just say this.

The Ottawa CFL team routinely attracted 20,000 fans even after not having won a playoff game in over 25 years. Fans were never the issue, ownership was.

therapists said:

"No one thinks of the greater good in this city anymore. What a can't-do community. Is Montreal still bankrupt from Expo 67?"

Montreal never really recovered from the legacy debts and financial stranglehold of the '76 Olympics. It took thirty years to pay off the $1.5 Billion costs and we all know how much use that stadium provided. Drive through the City, it's crumbling bridges, roadwork and other infrastructure is a daily reminder that this once vibrant metropolis used to be equal in stature to Toronto.

Meanwhile at home, it seems too many noisy kids that are afraid to go out in the world and make it on their own, seem to suffer from "short city syndrome" further complicated by subway envy in their determination to turn this City into another Toronto. Is big really better? Cairo seems to a thriving metropolitan capital ..... is that really what we want here?

When I used to take my dog for a walk, he would attempt to leave his mark indiscriminately. Even when there was nothing left, he would still *** his leg at another fire hydrant convinced he would be noted by all who passed in his wake. That's our city politicians, a spineless lot incapable of saying no, prepared to support just about any expenditure that will leave a mark, without discriminating future cost benefits, and willing to bankrupt my kid's future in the process.

There is no such thing as me, you, and the government. The government is me and you so when you try to take advantage of the government, you're really trying to take advantage of me.

Phil P: I never said I was against supporting the arts or amateur sports. The issue in question is a publicly funded stadium for a pro-sport team. But I hope you recognize that the city does not fund everything -- I gave the new central library as an example, but there are many other examples like the Exhibition (SuperEx) which council said they would not fund (I believe they were looking for $8 million), or a new Concert Hall, or a new Art Gallery.... In each case, city council has said that they do not have the funds. Indeed, to save money, the city has, in recent years, been cutting back on many amateur sport programmes like public outdoor ice rinks -- a policy which I believe should be reversed. So, this is why people like me argue against the special treatment given to the sole-sourced OSEG deal.

Therapists, why don't you compare apples to apples: tell us about the Montreal Olympic stadium, and its huge public debt. Expo '67 was something I fully supported, as I do the Tulip Festival, Winterlude, National Capital Marathon, Bluesfest, etc. I have been quite honest in stating that I do not support a stadium or a return to CFL football. However, if the majority want this, then I want the city to get the best value. In my opinion, Lansdowne is not the best site for a stadium, nor is the OSEG deal the best value either. Indeed, my big beef, shared by FOL (of which I am not a member), has been the conduct of our elected officials, whom I believe have misled us and acted against the public's best interest. (And before you ask, therapists: no, I do not live in the Glebe.)

Phil P (afraid to post his last name):

"Paul Ryan, where to begin with your comments?  I guess I would first state that this debate is not assisted by comments that completely disregard the interests of other citizens.  I am constantly amazed by those who clearly don't watch sports, but feel the right to criticize them and completely disregard the interests of those involved.  The CFL is not played "mainly by Americans", nor is a league that has been an institution in Canada for 100 years  "the latest electronic device". " yadda, yadda, yadda.

How can you claim that I disregard the interests of other citizens? Twice in the last twenty years, other citizens voted with their wallets and stayed away from two separate CFL teams. In a City of nearly a million, with an even larger drawing area, both the Riders and the Renegades failed to interest even 15,000 fans from routinely visiting the arena only seven times per season. We may as well build a 25,000 seat professional Bocce Ball Stadium at the general taxpayers expense.

It cracks me up up how those who want a CFL franchise want the rest of us to pay for it. Grow up. Bruce Firestone paid for the NHL franchise with no help from Ottawa taxpayers. He pretty well bankrupted the family fortune building a state of the art arena and even the highway interchange. Ottawa citizens do support the Senators.

As for suggesting that I'm someone who doesn't 'watch' sports, I'm guessing that I've been to more live Sens games than you have.  I used to regularly watch the 67's before this City got its own NHL team, now I can't be bothered. I used to go to the Lynx games. I remember when everyone in this city raved about our "perfect little ballpark" and the early years when the stands were full. Now that empty stadium lays testament to more wasted tax dollars, more wasted opportunity. I lived ten years in Winnipeg which is a football town that loves its Bombers and took in at least a couple of games a year, but when I watch football on TV it's the NFL that most interests me. I love baseball on TV but I have endured numerous live games in Toronto's domed folly and before that at Exhibition Stadium. Unless you're a professional athlete, I doubt if you have any greater right than I to declare yourself a sports fan. But I'm also a taxpayer, paying nearly $7000 per year in property taxes and I've had enough waste from politicians and whining from apartment dwellers who contribute less than $1500 a year in property taxes through their rents.

Trying to claim that the CFL is a league not dominated by Americans cracks me up. What other league has an "Import" rule? For the record, this years Alouettes have a roster of 44 Americans and only 34 Canadians. How may Canadians were in the actual starting line-up for last year's Grey Cup in Edmonton?

Meanwhile it's obvious that my previous reference to electronic devices went right over your head. I alluded to the frivolous nature of the fanboys who expect their parents to pay for their latest entertainment fad and then get bored and move on; much like those that demanded a baseball stadium and abandoned the teams that played there. Now people like you expect people like me to pay 2011 prices for a Nintendo 64 (CFL football) that I am equally confident the citizens of this city will not support.

Look, the City already has an unused baseball park available for outdoor events. The City arbitrarily denied the owner of Scotiabank Place the opportunity to develop professional soccer at his expense by allowing this proposal at taxpayers expense to compete with him at every level, even concerts ....... do you want to put Scotiabank Place out of business or do you feel that there is an unlimited amount of entertainment money available in the pockets of Ottawa residents. Your absurd suggestion that this project will put $250 million into the local economy as it struggles to emerge from the recession completely ignores that non-residential construction in this City is at its highest level ever.

If someone else wants to build a professional Lacrosse stadium, a Tennis Pavilian or even a Championship Tiddlywinks Tower, I'm all for it, as long as they are expected to pay for it out of their own pocket and not mine. I'll continue to support Scotiabank Place and the numerous privately built and operated golf courses around the City but can't say strongly enough how I much resent paying for your dreams.

As for the economics of this project and how it doesn't cost the taxpayers of this city anything to support this proposed development. That would be like me coming home and telling my family I sold the cottage up at the lake to fund my trip to Vegas but don't worry I didn't spend any of my pay cheque.

Sheridan, you are essentially arguing that when the City has other priorities, it should not put any money into a stadium.  That argument has been used for years by "taxpayers" fighting money for civic facilities the arts, etc.  Those things are never going to be ahead of affordable housing, transit or healthcare on the priority list.  If you argument is taken to its logical conclusion, the City should never spend money on sports or the arts or culture.

Fortunately I think most people who consider themselves "citizens" rather than taxpayers have a more nuanced view than you do.  If the City were to neglect spending money on the arts and or sports facilities, it would lose quality of life.  And that loss of quality of life will soon begin to have economic impacts.  Ottawa will be less able to attract people and business to locate here, which will ultimately have an impact on its ability to generate revenue and then your precious tax bill.  Not to mention that it will be an awfully boring place to live.

Cities that forgo investments in arts, culture and sports in the name of fiscal restraint are incredibly short-sighted.  

Why are the pro-Lansdowne people so thin-skinned? I never see them being accused of being paid for by the developers. Yet they are acting like a persecuted minority....

Steve

With respect to the delay being caused by the litigation.

The legal case is a given, not avoiding it is causing the delay.

The real risk to losing the hosting of the FIFA World Cup events is waiting until the court ruling in July/August.

A court ordered RFP at that late date is a very real possibility. Starting an RFP in September is the real risk to losing the hosting opportunity of FIFA events.

The wise leader does not gamble on the courts.

Having an RFP now gives a 5 month head start on the process and ensures the stadium and park will be ready on time for FIFA 2014.

My point is that is you cancel all forms of revenue for the city besides existing property tax, expect your taxes to rise to make up for the lost revenue. People aren't thinking beyond the immediate. My tax dollars are going to fund something I don't like and I'm convinced no one will ever use/visit! Stop everything! Lansdowne will bring in money, both from development charges, property tax, etc, but it requires an initial investment to get that ball rolling. Most things do. Same for LRT. In the short term all people see is money being spent on something that won't return the investment immediately. Describe something that does produce instant revenue, besides evil developers building a residential building on an existing parking lot on existing services. Because we're supposed to fight intensification in all forms. It destroys our cities and downtown parking lots.

How do you propose the city make itself sustainable? How is a city that doesn't invest in its long-term viability supposed to stay in the black, especially when residents are calling for this service and that, and lower taxes as well?

Sheridan, maybe I am just more willing to have MY tax dollars go towards the greater good of the city, rather than towards cherry-picked projects that only involve you personally.

No one thinks of the greater good in this city anymore. What a can't-do community. Is Montreal still bankrupt from Expo 67?

therapists: If a private company wants to fund and build a stadium in my neighbourhood, I am all for it. Indeed, I am probably more pro-development than most. However, we are talking here about public land and public money. Today, the biggest challenge for our municipal government is fixing/modernizing our transit system. This will cost billions of dollars. Some sacrifices will be made. For example, the construction of a new central library was cancelled. Municipal governments do not have unlimited funds. Nor do taxpayers like me, therefore I fight to keep my taxes as low as possible. So please, therapists, a little respect for your fellow taxpayer.

therapists:

We are debating Lansdowne. Whats your point

@JCDUBE:  You and your Friends are responsible for the delay.  The city and its partners are ready to move forward.

GC: Your comment "Lansdowne Live is as close to a consensus as we will ever achieve," is akin to saying "the downtown LRT tunnel is as close to a consensus as we will ever achieve." I have read dozens of different ideas for rapid transit and they range from brilliant projects to foolish ones. Likewise with Lansdowne and the stadium; the problem has been with our politicians who play games with these issues. And Watson continues that trend by ignoring reality. In the case of LRT/tunnel expansion, everybody and his dog knows that it is already over budget (over Watson's $2.1 billion campaign promise), yet Watson continues to go through the motions. Likewise with Lansdowne, whereby Watson knows of the court challenge, but will not act because "it is before the court", and yet he freely comments that the stadium "will be built on time." GC, if you believe ignoring problems/details and treating financial setbacks as fiction is consensus building, then Watson is your man.

Selfishness indeed. If the city-building model proposed by the CAVE crowd (Citizens Against Virtually Everything) was put into effect, we'd be stagnant and broke overnight. Cancel all development downtown so that no money goes to the city from "evil developers", leave all valuable spaces rotting and devoid of people to protect the city's heritage, and have the city shell out fistfulls of cash to pay for $11.5 million pocket parks all over the city because a few people asked for it. Yeah, that's a winning model that breeds great cities. Maybe delusional is a better word than selfish.

But of course, like all people who disagree with the FoL, I'm being paid to say this by Minto, Ashcroft, Claridge, ,etc, etc, etc. Gotta go cash those cheques now. I've fulfilled by duties by posting on this blog.

John: Try to address the issues being raised rather than just repeating your talking points. thx kgray

GC

There is only one alternative on the table, and that is from the Lansdowne Park Conservancy for the development of Lansdowne Park with:

Stadium

Green Space

Revenue/Retail Model

Governance/Management Model

It will come down to an RFP and the earlier the better.

It is still unclear why the City and others are afraid of competitive bidding on what Council has outlined for Lansdowne Park.

Steve:

That`s exactly what the problem is: the City keeps on planning and planning and planning but never gets anything done.

The stadium should have been maintained and kept in a reasonable shape all along. It`s plain common sense. Any homeowner knows that. If your roof is leaking, you fix up the leak: you don`t waste time trying to figure out whether you should have a 2 car or a 3 car garage.

There are excellent planners working for the City. However, they are so  thoroughly and persistently embroiled in bureaucratic mishmash that nothing  worthwhile ever gets done.

The CCEA asked for an horticulture hall in late 1913.  The architect was chosen in February 1914, the general contractor in April 1914, after tenders, War was declared on Aug 7, 1914 and the army moved into a finished building two weeks later.

The Bank St addition to the Coliseum was decided by Council in the Spring of 1926, architects and contractors were chosen and the 100th City of Ottawa anniversary luncheons were held on each day of the second week of August 1926, in the 200-sitting dining room upstairs.

What I am asking is for the City to start fixing the stadium NOW for the FIFA games. The FIFA games could also be preceded or followed by other events such as a lacrosse tournament or an Ultimate tournament. The CCEA crap can be taken out of the Horticulture Hall building and the site used for FIFA parties and celebrations, just like at the Olympics.

You don`t have to wait for pro-soccer either. Ottawa have lots of ethnic groups and soccer is their game. There are lots of tournaments and exhibition games that can be held.

The stadium has witnessed all kinds of events: harness racing, stock car racing, demolition derbies, Tina Turner, religious gathering, Orangemen, speed skating, snowshoers, horse shows, musical rides....you name it!

These are all income producing events. Repair the stadium and new money will start rolling in the city`s coffers.

Steve, no more plans! JUST DO IT!

JF Fournier: The final cost to the Hamilton taxpayer will be $72 million -- originally their mayor promised it would be no more than $40 million. The Tiger Cats are paying nothing towards the renovations. If you had followed this saga in the Hamilton Spectator, you would know that Hamiltonians are not happy paying this price tag, and many feel the CFL is simply no longer worth that cost; as well as the fact that few Hamiltonians favour the Ivor Wynne location.

Perhaps Montreal and Winnipeg are better examples whereby there is no Pan Am games complication. As I understand it, the Molson stadium renovations (at McGill University) were done by a combination of provincial, city and ownership money. (And indirectly federal money, if you count federal funds that go to the McGill university.) In Winnipeg, all levels of government, as well as the Aspers, are sharing in the cost of their new stadium.

Again, in Ottawa, the city bears the whole cost of the stadium. So back to my original point, namely that the sole-sourcing by O'Brien and co., removed the opportunity to find the best deal for Ottawa taxpayers.

Chris B, keep in mind that we have at least 3 years until the confusion surrounding the division 2 soccer in North America becomes an issue.

With Montreal joining the MLS next year, making 3 Canadian teams, I'm pretty sure the landscape of Canadian pro and semi-pro soccer will change substantially by the time 2014 hits.

Phil P, I couldn't agree more in regards to your comments about selfishness in this city.

There are hundreds of things that my tax dollars pay for that I do not personally like or support but I understand that in a city as large as Ottawa not everyone will think like me and it is important to support all points of view, preferences and tastes as much as we possibly can.

I never hear such arguments when it comes to funding arts facilities in the city, nor do I see sports groups protesting such things. Yet it always seems like when sports is involved there are people who hate sports that figure that because they don't like sports no one should be able to enjoy them at all.

The Lansdowne proposal tries to strike a balance in order to accommodate as many people as possible, yet there are still many who want it all their way or no way at all.

It's really sad that there are such selfish people in the city.

What is shocking about this debate is the lack of consensus for an alternative.  

We have the Conservancy advocated by John Martin but few others.  We have the Bayview proposal and the Melnyck proposal in Kanata.  We have those who just want a park and forget about a football and soccer venue entirely.  We have those who want to sell off Lansdowne Park to the private sector.   There are no doubt many others.  I even remember one comment suggesting that we plant a memorial forest.  One tree planted for each soldier lost in the wars.  Can you imagine 100,000 trees planted at Lansdowne Park?   It sounds like a good investment, doesn't it?  

OK, how can we achieve any sort of consensus on an alternate plan?   It seems to me that Lansdowne Live is as close to a consensus as we will ever achieve.  It is already a compromise.  

Chris B - Most people are aware that the various North American soccer leagues are in a bit of disarray at the moment but if Ottawa wants to have a professional soccer team in the future, the answer cannot be to not build the stadium.  The soccer league issue will eventually sort itself out and at that time, we should have a facility in place that allows us to host a team.  

As I have said all along, the soccer component is a bit sketchy. The CSA is currently refusing to sanction any D2 teams in Canada due to the nature of the league (there is a schism in D2 soccer in the US so until they get their act together there cannot be a coherent league).

The NASL is where Edmonton FC will be playing, but it is the USL that the Fury have applied for membership. Bottom line is that either league will take the Fury's money, one can never be certain from year to year what cities are in either league and who will be sanctioning them.

Until D2 gets it house in order, please take any guarantees on socccer teams with a grain of salt.

Chris B, I'm pretty sure that the Federal government has now stated unequivocally that it will not fund arenas and stadiums, so that is not an option for Ottawa.  Hamilton is an exception because of the Pan-Am Games.

Paul Ryan, where to begin with your comments?  I guess I would first state that this debate is not assisted by comments that completely disregard the interests of other citizens.  I am constantly amazed by those who clearly don't watch sports, but feel the right to criticize them and completely disregard the interests of those involved.  The CFL is not played "mainly by Americans", nor is a league that has been an institution in Canada for 100 years  "the latest electronic device".

But more importantly, to suggest that the stadium will only be used 7-10 times per year is categorically false.  It is very clear that the stadium will see a great deal of use.  OSEG also has a commitment for a soccer franchise to be based there, the stadium will be used for Ottawa U and possibly Carleton football, as well as recreational players in the colder months, concerts and events, not to mention the thousands of fans who go to see the 67's on a weekly basis.  Selling of the land for condos may seem like a great idea from your perspective as a non-user, but I would guess that there are a whole lot of people who don't share that perspective.

I can see how a decision would appear "stupid" if you only look at it from one point of view.  However the strength of this plan is that it takes into account a  broad range of interests.  And it your key concern is finances, as it seems to be, this project puts $250 million into the local economy as it struggles to emerge from a recesssion.   Walking away from those benefits for the sake of a supposedly improved process doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

@JCDUBE:  The city already has a plan to fix the stadium.  No need for an alternative, as described in your comment.

"$170 million for a football stadium refurbishment to accommodate a CFL team that plays only seven to ten games at home per year?"

No.  The city's portion of a refurbishment of the WHOLE PARK, including an actual park and its various features and a dedicated trade show facility at another site.

It's been years, Paul.  Maybe by now you should at least know the basics?

$170 million for a football stadium refurbishment to accommodate a CFL team that plays only seven to ten games at home per year? Twice now in recent memory, Ottawa citizens have rejected support of a CFL franchise.

We've already got a lovely but empty outdoor arena at the ballpark; I'm reminded of kids who insist they must have the latest electronic device because all their friends have one ...... only to discard it six months later when some other shiny toy captures their attention.

If it was up to me, I would put the entire site up for sale for high-rise apartments and condominiums, putting the sale proceeds toward off-setting some of the other absurd investments like the downtown transit tunnel to nowhere. Imagine spending a billion + dollars on a tunnel to shave perhaps one minute off transit time through the downtown during rush hour. We would need the additional annual tax revenue from a Lansdowne high-rise development just to cover the operating and maintenance costs for escalators, lights, security in the new downtown tunnel. Meanwhile all the potential benefits will be forfeited to the new bicycle lanes downtown.

I'd laugh if I wasn't weeping over one wasted opportunity after another.

Just imagine that we would commit to the $170 million expenditure for less than a dozen games of mediocre professional football mainly played by Americans who couldn't make the big show while we boot out how many amateur local soccer players who use the dome day and night for how many months of the year?

This issue won't go away because it's such a stupid decision.

Peter, GC:  But I'm told that in 10-15 years the sky will have fallen, and all of Ottawa will be trudging, broke and penniless, under perpetually grey skies due to the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park and the horror that it wraught on the unsuspecting populace. The dusty streets devoid of humanity in the Glebe (due to fear of retail, open space, and residential development) will echo with cackling laughter emitted from former Friends of Lansdowne members - now in their 70s, 80s and 90s - rocking back and forth on the front porches of their Glebe homes, wondering what it was that made them so smug in the first place, but ultimately not caring.

Sheridan:

I disagree. Hopefully this development will be revenue generating (eventually). The higher municipal tax bill will (& can) be largely blamed on infrastructure repairs (sewers, water mains, roads/bridges, etc.) They COST money--Lansdowne Live will generate tax revenue after the initial costs are incurred. The city is also very poorly managed--just look at the mess the city has done to the Ottawa River. That will take years & cost millions to clean up.

The City could start fixing up the stadium and remove the south side atrocity tomorrow morning if it wanted to. NO PROBLEM!

The stadium is fully owned by the City and the City has not yet signed any final agreement with OSEG. It is entirely free to do whatever it wants to do with the stadium.

When the present stadium was built as a Centennial project in 1967 designed by Vancouver architect Gerald Hamilton with federal and provincial funding and the one-third cost shared by the City and CCEA, there apparently were last-minute cost-cutting alterations. The result was that 30 defects were found afterwards, the roof was leaking over the arena and a bunch of suits and countersuits found their way to the courts.

Yet, the stadium, although being massive for the area, is a beautiful and possibly a unique world representation of a stadium of the expressionist style of modern architecture. The City of Ottawa is blessed with having four remaining buildings at Lansdowne Park each representing an era of peace and social and financial progress: Victorian, Edwardian, the 20’s and the 60’s which translate to glass palace, prairie style, art deco and expressionism.

So, why not fix up the stadium NOW so to be able to proudly host the FIFA tournament in 2014?  There absolutely nothing stopping the City from doing so. The Lansdowne Live drawings are basically just window dressing on top of the present structure. So, it is quite immaterial whether the basic structure is fixed up now or next year or two years from now. The City will be paying for it anyway.

The City must take full responsibility for letting its buildings deteriorate. It is sad that the budget cutting that caused such deterioration was due to high investments in roads, sewers  and other infrastructures required for development in suburbs far removed from the central and much older core of Ottawa.

If you don’t do regular maintenance on your car or your house, then don’t blame anyone when the big bills come around.

A few years ago, when reports came in about the sad state of the stadium, Councillor Peter Hume was quoted as saying:  

“Hume said the city has been a negligent landlord at Lansdowne Park, allowing the buildings to deteriorate by not carrying out needed repairs. Located as it is beside the Rideau Canal in a downtown neighbourhood, the site is a critical piece of public property, he said.

The report will show that council must act quickly, Hume said, adding that council cannot sit by while its most successful sports tenant, the Ottawa 67's, have their roof leaking.

"We haven't fixed the pipes. We haven't done our job as a landlord. It's our own fault."

He said that the Civic Centre has become "a pretty dismal place" and "a tired old facility" that will have to be renovated or rebuilt.

"It would be a travesty to allow the facility to degrade any further."”

www.ottawacitizen.com/.../story.html

Question: Now that the federal government has indicated that they will possibly fund CFL/NHL stadiums, has anyone from City Council explored the idea with them?

Sheridan, a few points regarding your post.

1) The reason that Federal and Provincial money were available to Hamilton was due to tie with the Pan-Am Games based in Toronto.  Had the stadium been only for the Tiger-Cats, the Federal government wouldn't be involved, and possibly not the Provincial.  Ottawa is not involved in staging any events, so those moneys wouldn't be available.  Even with the FIFA tournaments there is no Federal money, and only the possibility of a couple million from the province.

2) While Melnyk's stadium had plans for a third to come from each level of government, he never actually had any sign-off on those monies.  The Federal government has said they don't intend to give money for pro-sport stadia (such as Regina and Quebec City have hoped for and didn't get) so I don't believe they would have forked over the cash here.  The province may not have been very interested in it either.

3) Melnyk's $50M investment would have included the MLS franchise fee, which was believed to be $40M US.  So he wasn't putting much money into the stadium at all.  Of course, that didn't matter since he didn't get a team - they awarded clubs to Portland and Vancouver instead.  (And before you say that we would have gotten the team if council voted for Melnyk's plan, they were awarded a week before the council vote)

Sheridan, did Melnyk actually have a commitment from those levels of government?  If not, his plan is so much wishful thinking because the reason that Hamilton got that funding...

"Hamilton's Ivor Wynne Stadium is about to undergo a $150-million facelift, $55 million of which will fall on city taxpayers.

The balance will be covered by the Ontario and federal governments as Hamilton gets ready to host the 2015 Pan American Games."

www.tsn.ca/.../story

...does not apply here.

Dazman

Good point. Let's find the best use of the site for the best price.

That would of course involve an RFP or a competitive process that would bring in the best ideas.

The Executive (City Council) has determined there are certain things that have to be part of the park, namely a 24,000 seat stadium, an area set aside for green space, a lively mix of retail/restaurants to enliven the place and provide necessary services, and of course a governance or management model since the city wants to get out of taking care of the site. And due to the heritage and history of the site and its proximity to a local retail area you award points that don't pose any zoning, heritage or traffic issues

Sounds simple enough? It is.

And by doing so would stop all the legal proceedings and allow the taxpayer the benefit of competitive bidding.

Peter Quinlan: In ten to fifteen years from now we will all be wondering why our municipal tax is so outrageously high. This is something we will be fussing about.

This whole debate is bizarre. Sell the land to the highest bidder for a mixed residential/commerical complex on this immensely valuable land. Cafes and shops lining the Canal could turn Ottawa around and make it a really livable city.  The money that would be generated from the sale would also lighten the tax burden for the rest of us.

Short of this type of real-world rational thinking, however, at least a stadium with some retail bars or something would be an upgrade over the Glebe as it stands today.

GC: The Hamilton stadium renovation is being done with a greater part of the money coming from the federal and provincial governments. Not so with Lansdowne. Indeed, Eugene Melnyk's proposed $110 million stadium would have been funded by one third federal, one third provincial and the remaining third shared between the Senators Sport and Entertainment and the City of Ottawa. Furthermore, Melnyk was going to commit $50 million of his own money to bring a MLS team to Ottawa. However, Melnyk's bid was rejected because city council had a Lansdowne-centric focus, and the OSEG bid was (according to the mayor and many city councillors) "revenue neutral" and "risk free." So, GC, do you see why I find it ironic that you keep accusing FOL of delay tactics and "special interest lobby", issues to scuttle this stadium deal; while, at the same time, you ignore OSEG which has been the most influential "special interest lobby" in this sad public affair.

The Lansdown Issue is so contentious because it is basically about who gains monetarily, and whether the tax payers will gain or lose.

Should Lansdowne Park be retained as a publically owned space and developed in a manner which is compatible with the local community and the city’s transportation infrastructure, or should it be partially privatized to pay for a professional sports stadium that is sub-optimal if not incompatible with the local community and far removed from the most efficient transportation infrastructure?

If the former option is chosen then the biggest gainers in financial terms are those residents and businesses which border the site, and the biggest losers are those who stand to gain from the virtual alienation of the site. If the latter, then the biggest gainers are those who are essentially given part of the site, and the biggest losers are those who live and do business on the borders of the site.

In both cases the City could get additional tax revenues but not necessarily net tax revenues. Since the first option would by definition be more compatible with the City’s Official Plan, in particular the transportation component, it is much more probable that, over the long run, the City’s net tax revenues would be far superior to those flowing from the second option. This is why, as a tax-paying resident of Orleans I am totally against the second option, better known as the Lansdowne Partnership Plan. Very simply, it is madness for the City of Ottawa to invest heavily in a Cadillac professional sports stadium at Lansdowne Park, when it is about to invest over $2.1 billion in mass transit/light rail elsewhere. Very few people seem to have thought about the impact of stadium location on the economic viability of mass transit/light rail.

Those are the basic issues. However, I very angry at the way the City has arrived at the Lansdowne Partnership Plan. It has totally ignored these basic issues, ignored its own ethics and rules of procurement, and made dubious net tax revenue neutrality claims in an overly complex and murky financial model which few mortals can be expected to understand. That is why I fully support the Friends of Lansdowne legal challenge.

Is there an alternative to the Lansdowne Partnership Plan? Could such an alternative satisfy short-term demands, such as re-instating CFL in Ottawa by 2013, or providing a suitable location for the Women’s Soccer World Cup in 2014, as well as fully satisfying heritage and other issues? Of course, if the City did it right. As citizens of Ottawa we have been denied any serious development and consideration of alternatives both in the short- and longer-term for both Frank Clair Stadium and Lansdowne Park. It is because the City has not done it right, that we are now threatened with embarrassing heavy delays and/or non–participation.

Don’t blame the well-respected OSEG developers, who are only doing what private interests do naturally – look after their bottom-line. Don’t blame the Friends of Lansdowne who expect their City government to protect the public interest. It is the City that has let us down as tax payers. Hopefully the new Mayor will provide more positive leadership in addressing the basic issues, than we have seen so far.

Chris B, your quote from Bob Young doesn't quite tell the whole story, wouldn't you say?  Yes, during his campaign to get a stadium built on a site of his choosing, he did criticize another location on the basis that it was in a residential neighbourhood and lacked parking or rapid transit.  However, when he didn't get his way, he quickly agreed to invest in an Ivor Wynne renovation.  Ivor Wynnne is in a residential neighbourhood with little parking and no rapid transit access.  Are you suggesting that he believes that his investment is doomed to failure?

I think a more likely scenario is that Young had an ideal vision for a stadium, but when he considered the big picture, he was quite williing to trade those drawbacks for the benefits he could gain by remaining in a renovated Ivor Wynne.   Which will work fine, just as Lansdowne will.

It took all of six posts for jemartin to shill the Conservancy yet again.  Did anybody pick that number in the pool?

Chris B - Ivor Wynne Stadium is even more in a residential neighbourhood with less on site parking than Lansdowne Park, before or after Lansdowne Live.  My point being that it is more difficult to relocate a stadium than renovate a stadium.  In any event, you only captured part of the debate.  Other locations were also discussed and a consensus could not be reached for a variety of reasons.  The city had its preferences while the football team had its preferred location.  Because both had certain goals that were in conflict with each other, agreement on a new stadium location could not be reached.  The same thing would happen in Ottawa.  The preferred city location at Bayview versus the preferred football location at Lansdowne.  There are reasons for both but it will be difficult to reach a consensus.  

Peter Quinlan - In 10 or 15 years, they will not wonder why there was a fuss because nobody will remember the fuss.  Once we move on something positive, the negatives in getting there will be quickly forgotten.

The end game for the FoL is to eliminate the stadium at Lansdowne, nothing less will satisfy them.

This has been Doucet's plan from the beginning, it's the reason the stadium was allowed to fall to the ground in the first place and why no one in the neighbourhood seemed to care for their "park" for 15 years as is deteriorated.

They knew neglect was the best way to accomplish their goal.

Now with the Conservancy as a smokescreen, they figure if they can delay and obfuscate the situation enough the CFL owners will get frustrated and walk away.

This mythical stadium at Bayview for which they profess so much support will be forgotten as soon as they accomplish their goal because it's only a diversion tactic.

As is the case with virtually any sports venue, without a major tenant it doesn't make sense so this idea that the city will build a stadium for FIFA without a CFL team is pure fantasy.

The level of selfishness in this whole situation astounds me.

Why is this issue so contentious?

In a nutshell: those who oppose this truly believe the process was wrong (and they may have a point.) They think that perhaps there was some 'back room deal' to get this approved (and they could be right). Therefore they are attacking this at every angle & doing whatever they can to delay the process. Others simply have their self-interests at heart & simply want a park where they can walk their dogs.

Those who are in favour think it's the proper way to proceed with this re-development; that Lansdowne has been in a sorry state & ill maintained for years & that the city can't go it alone to re-develop the property & needs private support. Others simply have their self-interests at heart & want CFL Football back in the Park.

A classic case of 2 sides opposing each other. Only positive thing out of this is that all the people truly care about the outcome, which is rare for a civic issue.

My prediction is that it will eventually go ahead, even with all the inevitable delays & that 10-15 years from now, we all will be wondering why there was so much fuss about it all.

GC - Yes, please go and look at the Hamilton debate and you will see an experienced CFL owner stating that you cannot build a stadium in a residential neighbourhood with neither on-site parking or rapid transit. If you do that, in HIS opinion, you are dooming your CFL team to failure.

This is instructive - his comment in particular is that you need one of on-site parking or rapid transit. The plan for teh CFL stadium is to use residential neighbourhood parking. This will be both massively disruptive as people search for parking, inconvenient (there are 3 hour parking limits), and ridiculous (they include up to Powell and Bronson, a 20 minute walk away, in their parking inventory).

Again, I am just parroting what an experienced CFL owner sees as the need for success.

www.ticats.ca/.../caretaker-s-update-pan-am-stadium

Ironically you can build the stadium without the CFL, but only under the Conservancy model can you afford it.

We have a built in contingency for the CFL not being there. Having them there is a bonus to the finances but not a necessity.

With only a 5 year commitment to the park the prudent view on CFL revenue is to approach with caution.

GC

Nowhere in the current litigation that I have seen is there any mention of moving the stadium. If you can demonstrate otherwise please provide confirmation.

GC

Your logic doesn't make sense.

If you have an RFP now you end the litigation.

And if you have an RFP now rather than waiting 5 months for a court ordered RFP you are in much better shape to complete on time.

Time to have some leadership at City Hall and end th divisiveness.

The FOL isn't the threat to FIFA, it is the untenable position of stubbornness from the City legal, procurement and management departments.

The City really has no choice but to hold an RFP, and earlier is much better than later.

thx GC -- cheers kgray

If the CFL cancels, the city cannot justify the cost of building a stadium.   Nice try John.  If we lose the CFL franchise and the World Cup event, then enjoy Lansdowne Park as it is.  No football, no soccer, no park, no Ex, no shops or restaurants.  That's where we are heading if this does not get resolved.  The city has an approved plan.  It has to defend its decision. The voters expect it.    

Just like in Hamilton, the Pan Am Stadium could only move forward with an agreement from the Ti-Cats.  In that case, the agreement has ended up being a renovation of Ivor Wynne Stadium.  Surprise. Surprise.  To all those who think it is easy to relocate and build a new stadium.  Look at the history of the Hamilton debate.  It is an eye opener.  

I'm trying to move the Lansdowne debate onto this post so I can move it up the blog each day. If Lansdowne debaters could post here, that would be helpful. cheers kgray

This is a comment from GC:

Sorry John, the Friends of Lansdowne wish to push this matter through the courts.  The city has no choice but to defend itself.  A RFP now is not an option.  If we lose the World Cup event and millions in tourist dollars, we know who to blame.  In any event, most of the Friends of Lansdowne don't want a stadium on site.  This is why we don't want to open the pandora's box of a RFP if we don't have to.  As soon as we step back, there will be other attempts to restart the stadium location debate.  If that debate restarts, there will be no stadium anywhere for at least a decade and we lose opportunities to host all sorts of events.  

Interesting news is that the FIFA World Tournament has completely changed the requirement for the stadium.

The CFL could cancel tomorrow and the City would still need to build the stadium for the World Soccer Tournament.

An RFP for development now appears inevitable.

Let's get the RFP for Lansdowne Park completed now and take full advantage of the summer construction season.

Having a court ordered RFP sometime in July or August will be a blow to getting ready in time and won't see work commence until sometime in December, not enough time for the summer 2014 deadline.