Alternative LeBreton plan worth another look
Don’t give up on redeveloping LeBreton Flats just yet. The NHL hockey rink/condos/ retail plan of local developer John Ruddy and his disgruntled partner Eugene Melnyk seems to be on life support, but the reappearance of the other finalist in the National Capital Commission’s LeBreton competition offers a possible solution.
The alternative bid is worth a serious second look by both the NCC and the public. It is strong on public uses, less reliant on the condo market, and still offers the possibility of an NHL rink, should the Senators ever have an owner who is willing and able to finance a new arena.
The alternative plan is called LeBreton Re-Imagined, a name that seems more appropriate this time around. Its central feature is a winding linear park, a botanical garden that would connect the LeBreton area to downtown. It would be surrounded by attractions including a substantial aquarium, a large bandshell, a skateboard pavilion and a wind tunnel for skydiving. The surrounding community would also have a YMCA, a major retirement home and a francophone school.
The linear park is the thing that gives the project appeal. Anyone familiar with the High Line in New York, Millennium Park in Chicago or similar projects in Valencia, Nice and Madrid knows that they are people attractors. These rejuvenators of abandoned lands offer the potential for the kind of sophisticated urban experience Ottawa lacks.
Interestingly, the alternative plan is also the one that was closest to what the NCC originally asked for when it sought “development for primarily non-residential animating uses” and “a range of tourist attractions.”
Despite that, the project fell into second place for two reasons. Ruddy and Melnyk managed to make the decision mostly about a new arena downtown, an idea strongly supported by Senators fans. NCC board members, and local federal politicians, would have faced the wrath of the local populace if they had not chosen the plan that seemed to guarantee that the Sens would end up downtown.
LeBreton Re-Imagined, which is backed by a consortium of Quebec developers and wealthy investors, failed to capture the public imagination. Part of the problem was that it included a car museum, a news museum and a beer museum. That caused people like me to raise a skeptical eyebrow, but it turns out that the small museums aren’t really central to the idea and the beer museum is just a Molson-themed pub.
The Quebec partners didn’t do much of a job of selling or defending their plan, partly because they followed the NCC’s dictum to refrain from unseemly promotion, while the other guys were busy mobilizing Sens fans.
None of that matters now. The Ruddy-Melnyk plan is in a deep hole. The alternatives are: the actually pretty attractive LeBreton Re-Imagined plan; starting over; or doing nothing.
The Quebec partners’ plan offers some key advantages. The development group would start the linear park right away, creating the No. 1 attraction that will make the redevelopment appealing. The people behind it have serious money, so there are no financing concerns. It also has substantially fewer residential units than the Ruddy-Melnyk plan, and thus is not dependent on the vagaries of the condo market. The first phase of its development will include only one residential building. Importantly, the plan gives primacy to public spaces, and these are public lands.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Quebec plan included a home for Ottawa’s new public library, which is now proposed to be nearby, but not part of the LeBreton plan, per se. That might be worth a rethink.
Finally, the alternative plan preserves space for a hockey rink connected to a transit station. That didn’t make much sense the first time around, but it makes a lot more now.
If the Ruddy-Melnyk plan collapses, NCC board members should greet the alternative idea with the enthusiasm of shipwreck survivors sighting a lifeboat. It has been an awkward process, but a win is still within our grasp.