Speculation about alternate locations heated up last week when Mayor Mark Sutcliffe suggested the prime parcel of development land just west of downtown “is not the only option” for a new rink.
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Prominent Ottawa business leaders said Tuesday they believe LeBreton Flats remains “the destined choice” for a downtown NHL arena as chatter that other sites could be in the running for the Senators’ new home grows louder.
While LeBreton Flats has long been considered the clear-cut favourite to host the Senators’ new home once the NHL franchise is sold, talk of alternate locations heated up last week when Mayor Mark Sutcliffe suggested the prime parcel of development land just west of downtown “is not the only option” for a new rink.
Sutcliffe floated a number of city-owned sites as potential landing spots for the team, including nearby Bayview Yards, the RCGT Park baseball stadium on Coventry Road east of downtown, and property near the Hurdman transit station.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman poured more fuel on the fire Monday night, telling reporters at the Canadian Tire Centre that “all options will be on the table” when it comes to the Senators’ arena, including staying in Kanata, moving to LeBreton Flats or relocating somewhere else near downtown.
“I hear there may be two or three other potential sites that could work,” Bettman said, adding that, ultimately, “it’s going to be up to the new owner to decide.”
But even though sites like Hurdman and Bayview Yards are suddenly hot topics of debate, veteran real estate executive Shawn Hamilton dismisses them as “red herrings.”
Hamilton offers several compelling reasons why he thinks LeBreton is head and shoulders above the other options suddenly being bandied about for the Sens’ new home: It’s a stone’s throw from the confluence of the Confederation and Trillium LRT lines, Gatineau is just across the river, and the Flats offers plenty of room for future development opportunities like housing, shops and restaurants.
“All of the other locations might have certain elements that are strong and in their own right are wonderful real estate development sites, but I would suggest that LeBreton is really the only that checks all the boxes,” said Hamilton, Montreal-based real estate firm Canderel’s vice-president of business development for the National Capital Region.
As residents and pundits anxiously await word on who will win the bidding war for the Senators, Hamilton says it’s only natural that people will pounce on anything that might generate additional speculation in a rush to fill the “information vacuum.”
But the real estate industry veteran isn’t buying it.
“If all these other locations are so fantastic and credible, why haven’t they been talked about (before)?” he said.
Referring to recent buzz about new potential arena locations as “a lot of talk,” Colonnade BridgePort CEO Hugh Gorman said LeBreton has significant advantages over the other sites being discussed.
“You have to consider this for what it is, and it is a city-building project,” said Gorman, who sits on a task force that’s examining ways to generate more economic and cultural activity in Ottawa’s downtown core.
The head of Ottawa’s largest privately owned commercial property management firm said LeBreton Flats has been a wasted development opportunity for far too long. Like Hamilton, he points to virtues such as the site’s proximity to light rail and Ottawa’s neighbours in Quebec.
“It’s about connecting the entire region, including Gatineau,” Gorman said. “I’ve been in the real estate business for over 30 years. We’ve been talking about LeBreton since I’ve gotten into (the industry), and I think this is a real catalyst for the site.
“I think from a city-building perspective, LeBreton needs this more than Coventry needs it, more than Hurdman needs it. It’s not the only location, but in my view if you had to pick a location for all of those reasons, it would be the best location.”
According to Postmedia, some of the Senators’ potential owners are concerned the six-acre parcel of land currently allotted for a “major events site” in the National Capital Commission’s blueprint for LeBreton isn’t big enough for an NHL-sized arena and other necessities such as parking.
On Monday, Bettman also said he thinks the site might be “a little small” for all the infrastructure that’s required for an NHL rink.
“You need parking. You want to make sure you can build the arena big enough to have all the loading docks and TV hookups that make a building really accessible,” he said.
Gorman agreed that six acres probably “gets you the footprint of a rink and a little bit more with really nothing else” to support other projects such as real estate development that the club’s new owners might want to pursue to boost the return on their investment in the Sens.
“I was wondering from the get-go how you’re going to make a billion-dollar investment work on (six) acres of land without any ancillary ability for development,” Gorman said.
After the NCC’s Tobi Nussbaum and Marc Seaman met with Bettman on Monday, the federal Crown corporation, which oversees all development at the Flats, said it’s open to “provisions which offer flexibility to ensure the success of this bold and ambitious project.”
The statement didn’t say if that includes offering more land. However, Gorman said he’s confident any concerns about the size of the arena footprint can be addressed in the NCC’s negotiations with the new ownership group.
“The NCC has always said that they’d be open and willing to talk to the new owner, so I suspect they will be,” he said.
The Ottawa Board of Trade also says it remains a strong backer of the LeBreton plan, noting it’s yet to see an assessment of the economic impact of building an NHL arena at a different location.
“We have publicly advocated for the arena to be at LeBreton Flats and so we hope that is something that can be definitely worked out,” said president and CEO Sueling Ching, who met with Bettman before the Senators’ game against the Florida Panthers on Monday night.
“The LeBreton site is moving along nicely and we don’t want to lose any time or energy around the continued development.”
Hamilton said looking elsewhere for an arena site risks slamming the brakes on “the wheels of progress” for a new major events centre in the capital’s core.
“The court of public opinion, the planning rationale, all the narrative has pointed to LeBreton,” he said. “It’s almost the destined choice.”
