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Will Ottawa Keep Up With the Country?

Published on November 11, 2009 7:33 PM by dbo.

Tomorrow, November 12, Ottawa City Council will hear from 93 groups or individuals on the collaborative plan to revitalize Lansdowne Park. Included in those making presentations will be labour and trade groups which support the economic stimulus the project will provide and CFL commissioner Mark Cohon who will likely make a final statement regarding the opportunity for local ownership to join a prospering league that may not appear again. Friday council will debate the proposal and come to a decision no later than Saturday Monday. If approved, council will likely request a formal agreement be negotiated to be voted on in May. If defeated, it would put an end to the current proposal, the conditional ownership group and send the process back to square one with the football franchise off the table. Deferring the decision, in other words not voting to accept the concept, will also kill the plan according the to developers.

Updates

• The Bulldog has good coverage, including posts on the speakers slated for tomorrow and a report on a straw poll of councillors by a councillor.
• The Designing Ottawa blog also has a lot of posts publishing the stance of various architectural groups and poll results.
• Clive Doucet continued the mudslinging and misdirection with an attempt to prove the plan to revitalize Lansdowne was made secretly with the developers.
• Survey results show an even split on support for the plan and a large apathetic constituent.
• Ottawa's Auditor General confirms the project is not illegal.
• The Lansdowne and Minto names go way back, while the current Lord Lansdowne is making changes of his own.
• Architect Norm Hotson also opines that the plan will privatize a public space, while the creators of the plan point out the use of the space will be no different than now, except with increased green space in an economically neutral cost to the city.
• The developers continue to show their flexibility, stating they are OK with components of the design, such as the Horticulture Building, the Aberdeen Pavilion and the green space being opened to a design competition. They do want to avoid the city leading these processes to avoid them dragging out and the plan must provide for enough commercial space to maintain its economic viability.

Updates November 12

• The commissioner and two Ottawa sports reporters agree this is Ottawa's last chance to return the CFL to Ottawa. The opportunity with local ownership will likely not occur again.
• A councillor proposes attracting the Canadian Football Hall of Fame to the city's Aberdeen Pavilion. Too bad the CFL has little to do with the Hall of Fame, which represents all aspects of football in Canada, not just the professional league.

The Last Chance for Ottawa?

In recent days the following projects have been announced or moved towards reality:

• BC Place will get a new retractable roof at a cost of $458 million.
• Hamilton will be building a new track and field stadium for the Pan-Am games and if additional funding is found, it will become the new stadium for the Tiger-Cats.
• Montreal will complete a 5,000 seat expansion for Percival Molson Stadium to be ready for next season.
• Saskatchewan is moving ahead with a plan to build a 33,000 seat domed stadium at a cost of $350 million.
• Moncton will host a regular season game next year in a temporarily expanded stadium built for the 2010 IAAF World Junior Championships in Athletics.
• Winnipeg is expected to break ground on their new $120 million stadium in 2010 with a projected opening date of 2012.

You can't ignore the money being committed in 2009 to CFL stadium construction (among other uses) and believe the league is on its last breath.

Revitalizing Lansdowne Park is not critical to Ottawa, nor is an outdoor stadium. However, if a stadium project is not started now, will there ever be enough political will to start from scratch? Without a stadium now, will local owners ever be found in the future to return football to the city? If utilizing the current infrastructure isn't the most economic way, build new at another location, Kanata, downtown, where ever it may be, but build now. The opportunity is about to pass you by. Already the timetable for completion of the stadium project is 2013. How much longer would it take to start from scratch at another location, with no plans, cost sharing or anything in place? No, to avoid missing this opportunity and putting Ottawa in a class by itself amongst Canadian cities, Lansdowne is the project and the time is now.

This article is categorized under Stadiums and tagged with lansdowne-park and ottawa.

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