{"id":69558,"date":"2016-01-26T20:48:17","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T01:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=69558"},"modified":"2016-01-26T20:48:17","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T01:48:17","slug":"ambitious-bids-for-prime-piece-of-national-capital-include-nhl-arena-museums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/01\/26\/ambitious-bids-for-prime-piece-of-national-capital-include-nhl-arena-museums\/","title":{"rendered":"Ambitious bids for prime piece of national capital include NHL arena, museums"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Artist's<\/a>
Artist’s rendition of the proposed renovation of LeBrenton Flats
(Twitter <\/a>photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA\u2014From a derelict downtown brownfield to an urban playground complete with NHL arena, museums, and European-style plazas\u2014Ottawa’s long-ignored LeBreton Flats is on the cusp of transformation.<\/p>\n

Two ambitious bids for the 9.3-hectare space were made public Tuesday by the National Capital Commission in a presentation that was almost Disneyesque.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe skyline shimmers, the future unfolds before your very eyes, a community is reborn and it shines like never before,\u201d declared a video by the Rendezvous LeBreton group, which includes the owner of the National Hockey League’s Ottawa Senators.<\/p>\n

Both proposals include an arena, a new public library, major outdoor gathering spaces and residential space.<\/p>\n

The Rendezvous bid, called \u201cIllumination LeBreton,\u201d would emphasize public spaces around a currently hidden aquaduct and inlet, a \u201cCanada House\u201d gathering place for visiting military, a rooftop forest with holographic evening show, and an innovation pavilion.<\/p>\n

The rival \u201cLeBreton Re-Imagined\u201d plan, backed in part by financiers Andre Desmarais and Guy Laliberte of the DCDLS Group, is anchored by a winding \u201cCanadensis\u201d linear park that is supposed to highlight 14 of Canada’s ecological zones.<\/p>\n

It includes a beer museum, a media museum, a \u201cWorld Automotive Experience,\u201d a planetarium, a skatepark, an aquarium, a YMCA and a school.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe in our proposal because we think that we’ve struck the right chord in regards to a balance between city building and nation building,\u201d said Daniel Peritz, vice-president of Canderel, another member of the DCDLS group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis land, which is treasured land for the city of Ottawa and for the nation’s capital, still remains in the public’s hands and is accessible to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there is a major wrinkle in the Canadensis proposal: Senators owner Eugene Melnyk says he’s not selling his team, and won’t move into someone else’s building.<\/p>\n

\u201cEconomically, you just can’t justify building an arena when you have one, just for the sake of building an arena\u2014even if the land was given to us,\u201d Melnyk said later.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to have all the infrastructure around you to pay for your team.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the team doesn’t win the bid, it will be looking at a nine-figure renovation of its current home in suburban Ottawa, the Canadian Tire Centre.<\/p>\n

For its part, the Canadensis group says it would open discussions with Melnyk should its bid win.<\/p>\n

LeBreton Flats was once home to a working-class neighbourhood and light industry that was bought and torn down by the federal government in the 1960s. It is across the from the Canadian War Museum and the Ottawa River.<\/p>\n

The contaminated land sat idle for decades while successive governments balked at making the investment necessary to get it ready for development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA\u2014From a derelict downtown brownfield to an urban playground complete with NHL arena, museums, and European-style plazas\u2014Ottawa’s long-ignored LeBreton Flats …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":69559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-69558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-original","mauthors-jennifer-ditchburn","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}