The Ottawa Business Journal is 30 years old, and to mark the milestone we’ve compiled a list of the biggest business stories we’ve covered over the past three decades. From high-tech to hockey and from community landmarks to a global pandemic, here are 10 of those stories, as prepared by writer Krystle Kung. Check out […]
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The Ottawa Business Journal is 30 years old, and to mark the milestone we’ve compiled a list of the biggest business stories we’ve covered over the past three decades. From high-tech to hockey and from community landmarks to a global pandemic, here are 10 of those stories, as prepared by writer Krystle Kung. Check out the full list of 30 in OBJ's February flagship magazine.
1996 | HOME ICE ADVANTAGE? SENATORS ARENA OPENING PART OF KANATA’S RISE
Before the home arena of the Ottawa Senators opened in 1996, the area was farmland and Kanata was still a separate municipality. Real estate developer Bruce Firestone, hockey executive Randy Sexton and Cyril Leeder — currently president of the Ottawa Senators — banded together in a bid to bring a National Hockey League expansion team to the capital. Key to this endeavour was a plan to turn the land surrounding the future site of the arena into a booming commercial and residential development, creating value for Firestone’s company, Terrace Investments, that would enable the group to finance the franchise. While that plan ran into several roadblocks and high-tech entrepreneur Rod Bryden was eventually brought in to replace Firestone and bring in more financing for the project, Firestone’s group was indeed successful in winning the NHL’s approval for the franchise. The Palladium opened in January 1996 with a Bryan Adams concert and the Ottawa Senators playing the Montreal Canadiens two days later. Three decades on, the arena is now known as the Canadian Tire Centre and has hosted not only NHL games but also numerous big-name concerts as the largest sports and concert venue in the National Capital Region.
2000 | THE WELSH CONNECTION: NEWBRIDGE NETWORKS ACQUIRED BY ALCATEL FOR US$7.1B
Of all the ventures by Welsh-Canadian serial entrepreneur and local tech legend Terry Matthews, one of the most notable was digital networking company Newbridge Networks. In 1986, Matthews invested $13 million of his own funds to found Newbridge, a maker of equipment enabling high-speed transmission of voice and data signals over telecommunications networks. By 2000, Matthews had led the company to new heights, with about $2 billion in annual revenues and 6,500 employees across the globe, including about 3,000 staff and contractors in Ottawa alone. The US$7.1-billion sale of Newbridge to French telecom company Alcatel SA — one of Europe’s largest makers of mobile phones at the time — came at this opportune moment and amid analysts’ rumblings that Newbridge was struggling against larger competitors such as Cisco and Nortel. What’s more, the successful exit helped Matthews and his Wesley Clover investment firm support numerous Ottawa startups and shape Kanata’s real estate landscape.
2008 | SUGAR CRASH: HERSHEY CLOSES SMITHS FALLS FACTORY
Smiths Falls suffered one blow after another between 2006 and 2009 as its three largest employers each announced closures, eliminating more than 1,000 local jobs in a town with a population of only about 9,000 people. Among them was the 44-year-old Hershey chocolate factory, which had more than 500 workers, making it the second-biggest workplace in Smiths Falls. The factory and its attached Chocolate Shoppe were tourism draws as well, attracting more than 400,000 visitors in 2005. However, in 2007 the Pennsylvania-based confectioner announced it would close its Smiths Falls and Oakdale, Calif. plants the following year as it restructured its operations. Hershey Co. did repurchase the facility for $53 million in 2023 from cannabis company Canopy Growth, which set up shop in the abandoned factory in 2013.
2009 | END OF AN ERA: NORTEL FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY
To this day, the 2009 collapse of telecommunications giant Nortel Networks remains a story deeply embedded in the lore of Ottawa’s tech landscape. Representing more than one-third of the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 composite index and standing as an anchor employer in Ottawa with about 16,000 on the payroll in 2000, it saw a dramatic plunge in its stock value following the dot-com bust to just 67 cents from a high of $124.50. Amid scrutiny of Nortel’s accounting practices, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police laid criminal fraud charges against three of the company’s top executives and investors filed several class action lawsuits related to misrepresentation of financial performance. Then, the bankruptcy filing, which sent shock waves through Ottawa’s tech industry and decimated the value of pensions for thousands of retired Nortel employees. Nortel’s demise has produced a silver lining in the years hence, however. Alumni have found success at companies such as optical networking firm Ciena, which retains a significant local presence, and some former Nortel engineers have even invented novel consumer items such as the Instant Pot multicooker and We-Vibe sex toy.
2011 | FAR FROM CONVENTIONAL: OTTAWA’S NEW CONVENTION CENTRE OPENS
With its striking curved-glass facade that evokes an enormous crystal tulip and a prime location offering unparalleled views of downtown and the Rideau Canal, the Rogers Centre Ottawa has been an iconic part of Ottawa’s skyline since its opening in 2011. Originally named the Ottawa Convention Centre before becoming the Shaw Centre in 2014 and then receiving its present moniker in 2024, the four-storey, 192,000-square-foot facility was built to replace its much smaller predecessor, the Ottawa Congress Centre. Pat Kelly, the centre’s president at the time, noted that Ottawa was losing out on convention business because the old facility wasn’t big enough, at only 70,000 square feet of rentable space. The $170-million redevelopment project broke ground in June 2009 following the demolition of the Ottawa Congress Centre and the new convention centre made its debut in April 2011 to considerable fanfare, with almost 100 conventions already booked. In 2020, the centre was named the “best client rated convention centre” by the International Association of Convention Centres.
2014 | DESIGNING LANSDOWNE: FROM DECAYING TO DYNAMIC
When cracks were discovered in the concrete structure for Frank Clair Stadium at Lansdowne Park, the City of Ottawa took it as the push needed to transform the aging sports venue and fairgrounds into a vibrant centre for work, shopping and play. The international Design Lansdowne competition was launched at first, but then jettisoned when the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group came forward with its own Lansdowne Live! plan to redevelop Lansdowne through a private-public partnership with the city. OSEG, which included the involvement of Ottawa 67’s owner Jeff Hunt and Minto Group’s Roger Greenberg, had received a Canadian Football League franchise on the condition that it would secure an appropriate stadium for the team to play in and the group identified a revitalized Lansdowne as the perfect location. The partnership called for the city to take care of the development of an urban park on the Rideau Canal side of Lansdowne, while OSEG would rebuild Frank Clair Stadium and develop new residential units along with spaces for restaurants, shops and parking. The addition of the Ottawa Fury soccer team to the partnership added yet another element to make Lansdowne a real destination for entertainment and business. In July 2014, the new football and soccer stadium — which together with the Civic Centre got the new name of TD Place — opened in time for the new Ottawa Redblacks CFL team and Ottawa Fury home opener games.
2015 | FROM ONLINE SNOWBOARD STORE TO E-COMMERCE GIANT: SHOPIFY RAISES $131M IN IPO
Shopify debuted on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange in May 2015 with an initial public offering of 7.7 million shares at US$17 each. The IPO raised $131 million, exceeding the company’s $100-million goal and pointing to a market value of $1.27 billion. The firm’s IPO filing noted that, in the preceding year, more than 162,000 businesses in 150 countries had used its technology to sell their wares online and that the cloud-based platform processed $3.8 billion in transactions. It marked quite the trajectory from Shopify’s origin story as the Snowdevil online snowboard store, which was powered by a software solution co-founder Tobias Lütke custom-built to fit his e-commerce needs.
2018 | DUELLING LAWSUITS: COLLAPSE OF LEBRETON PROJECT RESULTS IN LEGAL ACTION
After two years of negotiations between the National Capital Commission and the RendezVous LeBreton consortium in the hopes of a viable plan to redevelop LeBreton Flats, talks fell apart in late 2018 and the group’s partners sued each other in a dramatic turn of events. RendezVous LeBreton, a partnership between the Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk and Trinity Development Group, had proposed a plan that would include the construction of a downtown arena for the NHL team and residential units. However, the plan stalled amid internal disagreements among the consortium members and in November 2018, Melynk’s Capital Sports Management launched a $700-million suit against Trinity and its executive chairman John Ruddy, as well as against developer Graham Bird and his company. Ruddy countersued for $1 billion about a month later and the project was shelved until the new owner of the Sens revived the redevelopment in 2022.
2020-2023 | SHAKEN TO THE CORE: COVID-19’S IMPACT ON OTTAWA’S DOWNTOWN
Arguably the most significant local economic impacts of one of the greatest global events of the 21st century were felt in Ottawa’s downtown core, from steadily climbing office vacancy rates to the state of emergency declared amid an occupation of Parliament Hill that shuttered roads, businesses and facilities and terrorized residents for nearly a month. Opposition to vaccination mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions saw hundreds of truckers rolling up to Parliament Hill to protest in January 2022. The parked trucks blocked streets and thousands of people gathered to support the “Freedom Convoy,” contributing to gridlock and the downtown core filling to the point that it was necessary for the three bridges connecting Gatineau to Ottawa to close. As protestors huddled in the Rideau Centre for warmth, many ignoring masking requirements, the mall was shut down too, along with Ottawa City Hall and other municipal facilities in the area. On a less dramatic note, the pandemic also sped up implementation of a plan that was already in motion for the federal public service to drastically reduce its office space portfolio by as much as 30 per cent over 25 years. Added to the mix were lingering questions about how to manage the return to the office and employees who were set on continuing to work from home.
2023 | THE BATTLE FOR THE OTTAWA SENATORS: ANDLAUER GROUP EMERGES AS NEW OWNER
In the end, it wasn’t Snoop Dogg or Ryan Reynolds that ended up buying the Ottawa Senators. While health-care transportation company CEO Michael Andlauer isn’t a celebrity in the regular sense, his role in the US$950-million purchase of a 90 per cent stake in the National Hockey League team has certainly made him a household name in the city. Andlauer’s group — which included local businesspeople such as Claridge Homes owners the Malhotra family and Jeff York, former head of Farm Boy — became the successful bidders for the Ottawa Senators in September 2023, 10 months after the launch of the process to sell the team and 16 months following the death of former owner Eugene Melnyk. The Andlauer group emerged as the winners in a high-profile race among several groups that included the rapper, comedian Russell Peters, the Weeknd and four of the celebrity investors from Dragons’ Den among their members. The new ownership team has since made exciting strides towards the long-discussed dream of an arena closer to the core, with the August 2025 signing of a deal to purchase roughly 11 acres at LeBreton Flats for $37 million from the National Capital Commission.
To read more about Ottawa’s biggest business stories of the past 30 years, check out the February edition of OBJ’s flagship magazine.
https://issuu.com/greatrivermedia/docs/obj_february_2026
