Other bidder on LeBreton growing tired of waiting
READY FOR GUESTS Museum staff Shannon Asencio combs out a large female polar bear before it’s back on display during a cleaning week at the Canadian Museum of Nature. The museum, which was closed to help control pests and dust, reopens to the public on Sa
The second-place bidders for LeBreton Flats are still ready to step up if the National Capital Commission’s negotiations with Eugene Melnyk fall through, one of the group’s leaders says, but time is running out.
“We’re wondering why it’s taking the National Capital Commission so long. We’re worried they might ask for another extension, which would be ridiculous,” said Jean-Pierre Poulin, the president of Gatineau-based land development company Devcore. “There’s a process in place and it should be respected. It’s a major development and the best should be done. It should not be that complicated.”
Poulin’s bid group, called DCDLS, lost out to the Ottawa Senators’ owner’s “RendezVous LeBreton” group when the NCC picked the bid for LeBreton Flats it liked better in spring 2016.
Besides Devcore, it includes commercial developer Canderel; money men André Desmarais (of Power Corp.), Guy Laliberté (of Cirque du Soleil) and William Sinclair (formerly of JDS Uniphase) as core partners; and affiliates like the Ripley’s Aquarium company.
In a nutshell, DCDLS’s vision for 21.6 hectares of prime downtown land is flashier, riskier and backed by more money. It has more museums and public buildings in it. Melnyk’s proposal, at least as it was presented in 2016, is less adventurous and more clearly doable, heavier on the condo towers. He also has the advantage of actually owning the pro hockey team for which both groups want to build a new arena. The NCC liked that the Melnyk-RendezVous plan proposed to cover the light-rail tracks through the property.
The NCC has been negotiating with Melnyk’s group exclusively for more than 18 months and has promised a major update when its board has its next open meeting in two weeks. Just before Christmas, with talks obviously at a critical point, Melnyk mused publicly that maybe RendezVous LeBreton and the commission won’t reach a deal and the Senators will look for someplace else to build a new arena, in language vague enough to suggest that place might even be outside Ottawa.
Melnyk blusters so it’s wise not to freak out about every little thing he says, but it’s easier to summon the necessary serenity if we know we have DCDLS waiting in the hall.
Yeah, they’re still there, Poulin said Friday, by cellphone from Las Vegas where he’s checking out smart-home technologies at the huge CES electronics show. “We’ve been on the sidelines since the beginning. The group is very much united. We’re still there, still united, still have the same vision for the site and we’re willing to participate,” he said.
If the NCC turns to them, they’ll have to take another pass through their financials and confirm the participation of some of the players outside the core group (the Ripley’s Aquarium people, for instance), but DCDLS is ready to talk, Poulin said. Assuming the commission makes up its mind soon. The longer DCDLS waits, the greater the risk.
“We could lose some players and it would not be our fault,” Poulin said.
Financing a first-rate new arena, which is the core of both bids, is challenging, Poulin said.
“The NCC requires no public money (be built into any bid). It has to be private financing for every aspect of it. And that’s not easy to do,” Poulin said. Especially with Mayor Jim Watson’s having said firmly that the city’s not sinking any of its money into a Senators rink, either.
“I’m sitting right now in front of the new stadium they built here in Vegas. It’s the new milestone, the bar is at $500 million,” Poulin said.
Public figures put the construction cost for the Las Vegas Golden Knights’ shiny new hockey arena at about $470 million Cdn, but close enough. Although a privately owned sports franchise’s value is hard to peg unless somebody buys it, Forbes magazine just in December estimated the Senators’ worth at about C$525 million.
So a new rink for the Senators would cost about as much as the franchise is worth. Melnyk has the team in hand but he’s not as rich as Desmarais, Laliberté and Sinclair put together.
The first time around, Melnyk said flatly, again and again, that the Senators aren’t for sale.
Poulin on Friday repeated the offers DCDLS made then: to simply hand land at LeBreton over to Melnyk and the team to build a new arena on their own; to build an arena and invite the Senators in as tenants; to buy the team if Melnyk changes his mind.
“(National Hockey League commissioner Gary) Bettman is a good friend of André Desmarais, you know,” Poulin remarked, ohso smoothly. “I’m sure between those three guys, something could be worked out. We’re creative, you know.” dreevely@postmedia.com twitter.com/davidreevely