Denley: Lansdowne 2.0 vote is a victory for common sense

Randall Denley: While any big spending decision has an element of risk, the plan to build the new hockey rink is as solid as one can get.

Ottawa city council’s decision to do the logical thing and back Lansdowne 2.0 is a victory for common sense and for Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s steady stewardship of the unduly contentious issue.

Some councillors and community critics did their best to cast doubt on the $418.8 million plan to replace the north side stands at TD Place Stadium and the abysmal Civic Centre, but their criticisms don’t withstand a reality check.

The problem starts with the failure to articulate a rational alternative to the city’s plan. Faced with aged-out municipal facilities built in 1967, councillors had limited choices. They could pick the critics’ preferred ostrich option, patching up old buildings and pretending they are OK before replacing them later at a higher cost. Or they could act now, as council has chosen to do, working with partner Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) to offset the project cost with increased revenues generated by the revamped site.

Alternatively, the city could have foregone any sullying involvement with the private sector, paid for the whole project with tax dollars and increased taxes to do it. That’s hardly attractive.

Opponents of Lansdowne 2.0 argue that the project is too risky, too costly, and the money would be better spent on something else.

While any big spending decision has an element of risk, the plan to build the new rink and stands is as solid as one can get.

The city has a fixed price contract for that work set at $313 million. There were three bidders for the project and they were all within a few million dollars of that number, so it’s fair to say it’s a realistic price. If the cost goes up, the city has a 10 per cent contingency fund, which councillors expanded Friday by adding more money from a hotel room tax.

Estimating revenue from the new version of Lansdowne over the 40-year term of the project debt is much more challenging, but even if projected revenues fall short of expectations, they will still exceed the zero the city would have received by paying for the whole project on its own.

As councillors suggesting alternative spending plans surely know, there is no $418.8 million pot of money without the revenue plan.

But what about professional women’s hockey? The Ottawa Charge says the new rink doesn’t have enough seats to meet their needs, an argument that pleased Lansdowne 2.0 critics. But wait a minute, the Professional Women’s Hockey League is owned by American billionaire Mark Walter. If critics don’t support the Ottawa business people behind OSEG, why would they help Walter?

The city says that adding a couple thousand seats to the arena would require a second tier, which would expand the rink’s footprint and eat up more park space. It would also scrap all the work done up to now, and cost between $80 and $100 million more. What a great idea.

OK, but surely Lansdowne will be another fiasco like the LRT, critics predict. Everyone knows the city can’t do anything right, so it shouldn’t even try. While one can compare any two things, there aren’t a lot of similarities between Lansdowne and the LRT, beyond starting with the letter L. The LRT project costs about $6.8 billion and involves tracks, trains, tunnels, stations and lots of complex engineering. Lansdowne involves a rink and half a football stadium.

While most of the arguments against Lansdowne 2.0 rest somewhere between the comic and the absurd, the most creative one was put forward by Ottawa architect Toon Dreessen. He says that demolishing the existing stands would mean “compounding our landfill problems and sending tons of embodied carbon into the dumpster.” It’s not every day that one sees an architect argue against replacing old buildings with new ones.

Councillors who opposed the new Lansdowne deal surely can’t have been under the illusion that they’d win. Perhaps it was enough to create a big stink in the hope that some would stick to Sutcliffe in next year’s municipal election. Facts were not their friends.

Randall Denley is an Ottawa journalist and author. Contact him at randalldenley1@gmail.com

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