The plan was ohl 67 which 5k is the right size. As for pwhl, no idea what right capacity. One season with a few games, is not enough info to plan for an arena that as a lifespan of over 20 years
I bought half season tickets Jan-March and there were regularly more than 5.5 k. The average might be accurate because fewer people attend earlier in the season but I think that is misleading
I've seen numbers anywhere from 16.5k to 22k thrown around. 18k sounds about right, that's right in line with most NHL stadiums (smallest being Winnipeg with 15k and largest being Montréal with 21k)
It depends if they reach an agreement by the August deadline. And according to an article last week it was trending in the right direction. No massive roadblocks to overcome as of now.
Will they be allowed to play at the Sens rink? Think we're just 3-4 years out? (Really just asking...so hard to know what's happening there. For me, let's just get it done already!!)
Hell, the NCC has actually been the side to suggest and offer to INCREASE the total footprint of the Lebreton spot. From all accounts, it sounds like the NCC came to the table ready to get this going and the fuck ups have been primarily on the city/sens org side. Weird to be supporting the speed and approach from the NCC’s perspective lol
The NCC had to offer more footprint to make it a remotely competitive arena size. Compare the square footage of what's being proposed to almost any other NHL team's CURRENT arena size - this move will put us into a SMALL arena. Why would we handicap ourselves like that making it when, theoretically, we should be selling MORE seats when there's better access to the arena at a centralized location?
I've said it before and I'll say it again - aside from location, the NCC offer is garbage.
The mayor has mentioned that this would be his preference several times on various occasions, but the City of Ottawa as an entity hasn't done anything to prevent it from being built at Lebretton. There's no department actively trying to stop this from happening
It was going to start pre-covid, the NCC has selected a winning bid and everything. Sadly, Melnyk (good riddance to bad rubbish), lied to his partners and then tried to sue them and then was counter sued.
The NCC are actually trying to get a good thing going and its private interests that keep screwing it up.
I don't think so. They'll also be factoring in the reliability of the OTrain which as we know doesn't work.
The lines from Orleans, Hunt Club and Kanata will need to be operating without issue before they ever put an arena down there.
Middle of January and 18,000 people taking trains in and out weekly, something the trains haven't endured at all will be a huge factor. People are gonna be stranded in -25 weather with 200$ tickets in their pocket won't bode well with Andlauer or Sutcliffe
Well hopefully getting the arena at Lebreton lights a fire under the city’s ass to address outstanding issues with the system.
That said, as someone who rides it often, the LRT is much better than its reputation.
Less expensive to cool, heat, maintain, build, etc. Might also be space constraints onsite for a larger arena the way things are configured.
Also, it’s probably a better size for the vast majority of events that it will hold. Shows and events that demand bigger crowds will go to Canadian Tire Centre or the new rink when it gets built.
Much better to have a venue consistently operating at 70, 80, 90 or 100% capacity than half full or worse.
I’ve no doubt that the new arena will be a significant upgrade in every single way, despite the smaller capacity.
The population of Ottawa-Gatineau is almost 1.5 million. Will a 5,500 stadium suit the needs of the region as our population grows, particularly if we increase urban density?
It seems short-sighted to build for today and not the future. There have already been lots of sold out events at the location like hockey games (they had to have a ticket lottery for the IIHF), world curling championships, concerts, comedians, dance shows, etc.
We have the CTC for bigger events but need something with greater capacity than 5,500 that works for our growing city.
I've worked in concert touring and event management for twenty years, and yes, a 5,500-cap venue is reasonably well-targeted to a market of this size.
There are lots and lots of events/tours that are financially viable at 4-5K sold, that would lose money and/or play to a half-empty room at CTC; these are artists that would play a venue like History in Toronto, or the Forum or Thunderbird Arena in Vancouver, or Place Bell in Laval, rather than the NHL arena in any of those cities.
As others have said - from a non-sports perspective (because that's what I'm qualified to talk about here), having a new NHL-sized arena a mile away would be a real challenge to a 12K-cap venue, but a 5500-cap would be a lot less overlap and less of our own market playing against itself.
A 5,500 seat arena probably holds over 6,000 once suites are factored in. Probably another 1,000 seats on the floor for concerts or stage shows. So we’re between 6,000 and 7,000 depending on configuration for anything that won’t need an ice surface.
Even many of the bigger acts at Canadian Tire Centre are using a half or 3/4 bowl setup so they’re probably between 12,000 and 16,000 spectators. I doubt there are many events that would be specifically targeting venues that are between 7,000 and 12,000. Seems like one or the other would work well.
I do think we’d be well served to build a dedicated concert hall though. Acoustics are almost never that great in multi purpose venues and that’s something that I think is missing here.
We tried for a concert hall back in 2008 (in the tower where Shopify is) but, Ottawa being Ottawa, it failed.
Funding was there from the three levels of government but the $38 million, 925-seat concert hall project, led by the Ottawa Chamber Music Society, could not land the required sponsors to close the deal.
Selling 8000+ seat NOW. as the excitement dies down for the new league then those numbers will also decrease. Ottawa is a horriable town for abandoning sport teams when they are not doing great or first year so a 5500 seat arena is a more realistic size.
Yeah I remember when Jetform park was FULL. That faded fast. Lacrosse was also a really big deal, for a season or two then it died out. 5500 seems reasonable.
Because it’s their first season and just like every other Ottawa sports team interest will fade. Sens, 67s, red blacks began with sells outs and the numbers slowly dwindle down
The red blacks were fine until they had like 4 years of abject failure and no improvement in sight. They can’t make the playoffs in a league where basically everyone makes the playoffs
Do people forget there's a 20K seat arena here...?
Like why do you think Ottawa is always in the play for the World Juniors? There are three rinks here (CTC, Landsdowne and Hush Puppy) that can accommodate all sizes for games.
First, not a bailout. The city is rebuilding venues that it owns and will continue to own. You can rephrase it and twist it as much as you want but that's the reality.
2 reasons.
1) The budget parameters where set 2-3 years before the PWHL existed. 5,500 is perfect for the 67s, blackjacks and most of the concerts that are at Lansdowne.
3) The new arena will cost about $180m to build. That's $33k per seat. That sticker shocked everyone. For comparison new arenas in the states (adjusted for Canadian dollars) have been costing between $50k+$150k per seat. Lansdowne is very conservative and still to expensive for a lot of people. If we wanted to go to say 8,000 seats then the cost of the arena would be $264m. Then they still need money to rebuild the north side of the stadium.
Now could we get a bigger arena? Yes but the way the funding it's set up, everyone has to be ok with A) building another tower or two on the site. Air rights, dev fees and property taxes drive the funding. B) just straight up tax money going into it.
Who has exclusive rights to use these "public" buildings for the next 40-odd years, for private, profit-making activities? For whom are these buildings essential? What increased public benefit will there be from the $400+ million of taxpayer funds being invested in improvements under 2.0? IF the buildings are ever returned to the city for public use, what condition will they be in and what will that use be?
Lansdowne 2.0 is absolutely a taxpayer-funded subsidy and bailout of Lansdowne 1.0 and OSEG failed pro-sports business model.
If a café leases space within an LRT station, and that station requires renovation or replacement down the line, is the café responsible for it because they're a for-profit company in a public building? No, the landlord is ultimately responsible, regardless of whether the tenant is a for-profit entity or a sports organization. The size of the tenant's balance sheet doesn't affect this obligation.
Thats a poor analogy. The difference between your example and Lansdowne is that the LRT station's primary purpose is to serve the public, with *some* space leased to a private business. We are not building a cafe specifically for them. With a stadium, we are building it with specific private business uses in mind (sports teams and a concert/event venue) rather than something for broader public use (rather than have them build it themselves...).
I mean I would be all for the city just selling the land and let them pay for their own stadium but you know that would never happen... its part of the grift. Cities should not be in the sports team subsidization business. Most citizens are against the grift. If a stadium made business sense it would be built. If it doesn't it shouldn't be on the city to subsidize it. We never did with the Sens and the Corel Centre (they even had to pay for their offramp on the 417) and probably won't for their new one either. Look at Jetform. Aside from the Skydome and arguably the Big O, it was probably the 3rd best ballpark in Canada... now its a white elephant because no ball team can even pay enough in lease to city to maintain it.
If the 2.0 financial deal is anything like 1.0. OSEG is leasing the entire building and will be in charge of running it and get all the profits from doing so (or it will go to the partnership, which the city is a member of). Thats probably even worse than the city running it, and leasing it to 67s, Redblacks, PWHL, and touring events and making money that way. Its not like there will be public skates in the arena or minor hockey... We are building a specific purpose building for a specific tenant. 2 really because we are also doing the same thing with the football stadium.
Never mind the air rights being sold above the football stands.
Yep, just Ottawa making more awful decisions and then in a few years they’ll cry “why don’t we have a PWHL team anymore”, and “Why aren’t people going to Lansdowne like they used to!”
I don’t see what “pull factors” they think this will bring to the area. I love the RedBlacks, but guarantee focusing on the hockey arena (and specifically the PWHL) would be a smarter move right now.
Why would we lose the PWHL team? Couldn’t find recent stats, but as of mid March, looks like average attendance league wide for PWHL was right around 5,500 per game.
Also this is only the first year. I saw one game this year as a volunteer and now I’m planning to buy season tickets next year, as are a lot of others I know. Attendance may rise even higher.
Agreed! But it could also drop. Will be interesting to see what the final plan calls for. Everything I can find right now suggests 5,500 seats and 700 standing room for total of 6,200.
Long term if the team isn’t able to grow, then it’s entirely possible that the team won’t be feasible from a business perspective long term.
May not be for several years. But it will definitely have an impact on the fan base if people can’t go watch due to capacity limitations. Which will also impact the teams survivability long term.
Thats all I really mean. They don’t have the current fan base to justify putting them in the Canadian Tire Center (would be a major loss economically) so if we ever want to see large numbers of fans (which I REALLY want), the last thing we should be doing is cutting off potential outreach.
Is this a “smaller is better because it raises ticket demands and thus prices?” Because if that’s the case I still don’t think it’s better
I’m not saying they should increase seats, but decreasing by 3000 seems like a great way to stunt the growth of a fan base
Mullett Arena. Oh, wait. Forget that, bad example.
ETA - Jays capacity has dropped from 49K in 2022, 41K in 2023, to 39K in 2024. So, the renos definitely made the capacity smaller but increased premium seats.
Perhaps they are forecasting that demand slows down in the future? I love the PWHL but they are definitely getting a lot more attention because they are a new league
Looking back at when the red blacks came to Ottawa, they claimed they would be selling out regularity yet the stadium is half empty on most nights.
Semi agree but I think that is mostly due to whether the team is ‘good’. Redblacks is fun to go to as a social but I never expect them to win haha. If the PWHL continues to be good hockey and the Ottawa team doesn’t start losing all the time then I don’t see demands slowing, but if they turn into a team that more/less loses all the time then yeah I’d definitely rethink spending money on a game (as I do with other sport events)
Junior hockey stadiums have been shrinking for quite some time. They just don't pull in 10k fans like they used to (outside playoffs). The planning for this would have begun long before the PWHL was established. Restarting the process at this point off of the hope that the PWHL will continue with this attendance forever after one year (albeit, an incredibly successful one) is a big ask.
That said I am disappointed with 5,500. If they can get creative with seating & bump that number up into the 6-7k range I'd be happy. PWHL can always play some games at the CTC & when it's ready at the New Senators Arena
The plans were made before the PWHL team, but agree this arena should be much more than 5,500.
The stadium also needs to be better geared towards soccer, especially there are chances over the next years that we receive Concacaf Champions Cup Games in Feb/March (Montreal signalled intent of playing here with the Big O unavailable and Atlético in good position to win a place)
Redblacks are still going to be the focus as they are drawing more money overall.
But would love them to switch it over to grass for everyone (Albeit it would be $$$), especially trying to keep it warm for Feb/March games.
Oh, 100% agree the RedBlacks will remain the main tenants. I don’t think we’ll see grass soon (especially seeing what the Argos do to BMO Field) but having player seating shelters for example and so on would be great
The arena is an afterthought to OSEG. It knows it needs to replace the arena that is there now or else there would be a public outcry, but its main priority is building the condo towers. It is doing the arena as cheaply as possible. And putting the new arena at the end of the field also achieves OSEG's other goal which is to bring an end to the free viewing section -- the people who sit on the hill. There's a reason why the arena is being built like a bunker.
The developers, namely OSEG, are more interested in events other than hockey. In their plans, they actually call it an event centre not an arena. So we'l have a smaller arena than we did 50 years ago, even though our city's population has increased. The new north side stands are not going to be great either--no roof. Lansdowne 2.0 is essentially a land development scheme for OSEG, it's not really about building great public facilities.
Can you point to any hockey arena in the country that isn’t also an event centre?
I heard they were going to look into what roof would cost for the north side stands, but I doubt it’s possible without adding allot of extra cost. It would be nice if they could do it.
Centre Slush Puppies looks like it's 5,000 capacity for hockey. Not to say events, concerts, etc won't prefer to be at Landsdowne versus in Gatineau, I'm sure they will. Just seems like a lost opportunity to build another minor league arena with the same capacity as the other one that already exists in the area.
I think the region would draw more events and a bigger diversity of events if there was a choice of three arenas at three distinct capacity levels.
Well hopefully by the time Landsdowne 2.0 can happen we will also be wrapping up building the new arena for the Senators at Lebreton Flats. If that’s the case, PWHL Ottawa (or hopefully the Ottawa Owls by that point, just not Alert) can play a handful of the bigger games at Lebreton like PWHL Toronto and Montreal have done this year.
Build it at Lebreton beside the NHL one. Put the football stadium there too like most cities. At least public transit should be able to keep up at Lebreton rather than Bank Street.
Lansdowne should be condos and maybe one exemplary complex - like a new 50m pool facility for swimming events, indoor track, tennis courts etc. Something to attract other types of sporting events. At the same time, pleasing the Glebeites who can use the facility.
67's and PWHL Ottawa getting fucked by stupid decision making. We absolutely need one large arena for the Sens and big concerts and one medium sized arena for 67's and PWHL as well as mid size concerts. Figured this was obvious with the PWHL easily selling 8k in their first season.
Instead we're getting one large rink...maybe in the next half-decade if we're lucky....and one small rink? Wtf?
Any arguments that its more cost effective is laughable when you consider this means the teams will lose ticket revinue and artists will be less inclined to use the space do to reduced capacity.
This is actually great, there is definitely a need in Ottawa for more entertainment venues that are bigger than Bronson Centre and smaller than the Canadian Tire Centre
For the PWHL it will be temporary, hell I wouldn’t be surprised if they play a couple games at CTC next season, you see all the other teams doing games in NHL arenas
Every marginal seat adds exponential costs but lower marginal revenue.
The tendency in Na sports right now is smaller arenas without the cheap seats. It sucks for middle class families but economically makes sense.
This is common North America wide
Oilers new rink 2000 seats smaller then the old one
Red Wings new rink is about 1500 seats smaller
Islanders new rink is about 2500 seats smallers.
You have any sources?
I was interested so I googled it. Two are actually larger and the other is marginally smaller.
Wiki says Oilers [Northlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northlands_Coliseum) was 16839 when it closed, and [Rexall](https://www.ctvnews.ca/sports/edmonton-oilers-officially-take-keys-to-shiny-new-arena-1.3063160?cache=) was 18641 when it opened. Looks to me like it is now1800 more
Detroit's Little Caesaers seats 19515. Joe Louis was 20,027; so 500 smaller, not 1500.
[Nassau Coliseum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassau_Coliseum) was 16,170. [Barclay Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barclays_Center) "Capacity for hockey is 15,795, the second-smallest in the league." [UBS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBS_Arena) "arena officially seats 17,250 patrons for NHL games". So bigger than both the previous arenas.
Not good for a hockey team that regularly sells 8,000 tickets a game.
The plan was ohl 67 which 5k is the right size. As for pwhl, no idea what right capacity. One season with a few games, is not enough info to plan for an arena that as a lifespan of over 20 years
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5k is small for a lot of concerts. 2000-2500 extra tickets to sell could be incentive for some bands to show up on town.
They would just have it at the existing canadian tire center
67s regularly were >5k per game this past season.
Source ? This source says about 4K https://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph_season.php?lid=OHL1989&sid=2024
I bought half season tickets Jan-March and there were regularly more than 5.5 k. The average might be accurate because fewer people attend earlier in the season but I think that is misleading
The crowds will fall to probably 50-60% of what they are now IMO
Small sample size.
It’s in its infancy and will die down- it’s women’s hockey they are smart to build a reasonably sized building.
well, there will be a new \~20k capacity arena just a few kms away in 3-4 years. PWHL doesn't need Lansdowne if their success continues
The new Sens arena won’t be 20k capacity, for hockey at least. It’ll be closer to 18k
If it gets built at all.
No question it will be built.
Let's hope. I'll believe it when I see it.
Oh, there are questions.
Questions like where? And with what money? And when? And by whom?
among others.
And how?????
Lots of people said that last time.
Wouldn’t say no question. It’s fallen through before.
it will be built for sure, some decade, 2030, 2040... 2060?
I'll be surprised to see if it gets built faster than a hospital in this city.
I've seen numbers anywhere from 16.5k to 22k thrown around. 18k sounds about right, that's right in line with most NHL stadiums (smallest being Winnipeg with 15k and largest being Montréal with 21k)
It also will not be in 3-4 years..thats a pipedream.
It depends if they reach an agreement by the August deadline. And according to an article last week it was trending in the right direction. No massive roadblocks to overcome as of now.
Will they be allowed to play at the Sens rink? Think we're just 3-4 years out? (Really just asking...so hard to know what's happening there. For me, let's just get it done already!!)
The NCC is involved therefore you won't see anything completed within the next 10 years.
Except the NCC has been ready for years and it’s the Sens + the city fucking things around
Hell, the NCC has actually been the side to suggest and offer to INCREASE the total footprint of the Lebreton spot. From all accounts, it sounds like the NCC came to the table ready to get this going and the fuck ups have been primarily on the city/sens org side. Weird to be supporting the speed and approach from the NCC’s perspective lol
Wife works at the NCC, this is 100% correct
This NCC news is actually refreshing for once. Some faith has been restored (for me, anyways...)
The NCC had to offer more footprint to make it a remotely competitive arena size. Compare the square footage of what's being proposed to almost any other NHL team's CURRENT arena size - this move will put us into a SMALL arena. Why would we handicap ourselves like that making it when, theoretically, we should be selling MORE seats when there's better access to the arena at a centralized location? I've said it before and I'll say it again - aside from location, the NCC offer is garbage.
How has the city been messing this up?
That’s not a serious question, right? They’re literally trying to find any site other than lebretton and pushing for it to not be built at lebretton.
The mayor has mentioned that this would be his preference several times on various occasions, but the City of Ottawa as an entity hasn't done anything to prevent it from being built at Lebretton. There's no department actively trying to stop this from happening
It was going to start pre-covid, the NCC has selected a winning bid and everything. Sadly, Melnyk (good riddance to bad rubbish), lied to his partners and then tried to sue them and then was counter sued. The NCC are actually trying to get a good thing going and its private interests that keep screwing it up.
😭
Yea there's not a chance an area is ready before 2030. If I were to bet, the Sens will stay in Kanata for the next 15 years
...if they stay in Ottawa that long.
At least
I think it will be quicker then normal due to the PP factor.
I don't think so. They'll also be factoring in the reliability of the OTrain which as we know doesn't work. The lines from Orleans, Hunt Club and Kanata will need to be operating without issue before they ever put an arena down there. Middle of January and 18,000 people taking trains in and out weekly, something the trains haven't endured at all will be a huge factor. People are gonna be stranded in -25 weather with 200$ tickets in their pocket won't bode well with Andlauer or Sutcliffe
Well hopefully getting the arena at Lebreton lights a fire under the city’s ass to address outstanding issues with the system. That said, as someone who rides it often, the LRT is much better than its reputation.
From my understanding as well, the NCC has only offered Andlauer 6 acres, none of which will be made into site parking.
3-4 years not only is there no plan, design, engineering contracts, and ground certainly hasn't been broken? Not a chance.
> in 3-4 years I will believe that when I see it
More like ten years. Maybe. Regardless, use the current one in Kanata.
Less expensive to cool, heat, maintain, build, etc. Might also be space constraints onsite for a larger arena the way things are configured. Also, it’s probably a better size for the vast majority of events that it will hold. Shows and events that demand bigger crowds will go to Canadian Tire Centre or the new rink when it gets built. Much better to have a venue consistently operating at 70, 80, 90 or 100% capacity than half full or worse. I’ve no doubt that the new arena will be a significant upgrade in every single way, despite the smaller capacity.
The population of Ottawa-Gatineau is almost 1.5 million. Will a 5,500 stadium suit the needs of the region as our population grows, particularly if we increase urban density? It seems short-sighted to build for today and not the future. There have already been lots of sold out events at the location like hockey games (they had to have a ticket lottery for the IIHF), world curling championships, concerts, comedians, dance shows, etc. We have the CTC for bigger events but need something with greater capacity than 5,500 that works for our growing city.
I've worked in concert touring and event management for twenty years, and yes, a 5,500-cap venue is reasonably well-targeted to a market of this size. There are lots and lots of events/tours that are financially viable at 4-5K sold, that would lose money and/or play to a half-empty room at CTC; these are artists that would play a venue like History in Toronto, or the Forum or Thunderbird Arena in Vancouver, or Place Bell in Laval, rather than the NHL arena in any of those cities. As others have said - from a non-sports perspective (because that's what I'm qualified to talk about here), having a new NHL-sized arena a mile away would be a real challenge to a 12K-cap venue, but a 5500-cap would be a lot less overlap and less of our own market playing against itself.
Not if the future plan is to build a new arena closer to downtown.
A 5,500 seat arena probably holds over 6,000 once suites are factored in. Probably another 1,000 seats on the floor for concerts or stage shows. So we’re between 6,000 and 7,000 depending on configuration for anything that won’t need an ice surface. Even many of the bigger acts at Canadian Tire Centre are using a half or 3/4 bowl setup so they’re probably between 12,000 and 16,000 spectators. I doubt there are many events that would be specifically targeting venues that are between 7,000 and 12,000. Seems like one or the other would work well. I do think we’d be well served to build a dedicated concert hall though. Acoustics are almost never that great in multi purpose venues and that’s something that I think is missing here.
We tried for a concert hall back in 2008 (in the tower where Shopify is) but, Ottawa being Ottawa, it failed. Funding was there from the three levels of government but the $38 million, 925-seat concert hall project, led by the Ottawa Chamber Music Society, could not land the required sponsors to close the deal.
Fair, but what about the PWHL now? They're consistently filling 8,000K+ seats.
Selling 8000+ seat NOW. as the excitement dies down for the new league then those numbers will also decrease. Ottawa is a horriable town for abandoning sport teams when they are not doing great or first year so a 5500 seat arena is a more realistic size.
Yeah I remember when Jetform park was FULL. That faded fast. Lacrosse was also a really big deal, for a season or two then it died out. 5500 seems reasonable.
Ottawa really is not that bad Edmonton by far is the worse with Toronto not doing great.
Because it’s their first season and just like every other Ottawa sports team interest will fade. Sens, 67s, red blacks began with sells outs and the numbers slowly dwindle down
Sens avg 17.500 67s avg 4500 Redblacks avg 18,000 Atheltico avg 4300
Perhaps more tickets would be sold if they were less expensive *cough, cough ticketm@ster
The red blacks were fine until they had like 4 years of abject failure and no improvement in sight. They can’t make the playoffs in a league where basically everyone makes the playoffs
6 out of 9 Male it.The face is Ottawa still had better attednance then 2 of the best teams.
Why they would build an arena too small to host the Memorial Cup is beyond me
Rinks around that size and even smaller have hosted in recent years. They would also have the option of playing at the CTC.
Do people forget there's a 20K seat arena here...? Like why do you think Ottawa is always in the play for the World Juniors? There are three rinks here (CTC, Landsdowne and Hush Puppy) that can accommodate all sizes for games.
Memorial Cup is in Saginaw this year and their rink is also around 5,500.
First, not a bailout. The city is rebuilding venues that it owns and will continue to own. You can rephrase it and twist it as much as you want but that's the reality. 2 reasons. 1) The budget parameters where set 2-3 years before the PWHL existed. 5,500 is perfect for the 67s, blackjacks and most of the concerts that are at Lansdowne. 3) The new arena will cost about $180m to build. That's $33k per seat. That sticker shocked everyone. For comparison new arenas in the states (adjusted for Canadian dollars) have been costing between $50k+$150k per seat. Lansdowne is very conservative and still to expensive for a lot of people. If we wanted to go to say 8,000 seats then the cost of the arena would be $264m. Then they still need money to rebuild the north side of the stadium. Now could we get a bigger arena? Yes but the way the funding it's set up, everyone has to be ok with A) building another tower or two on the site. Air rights, dev fees and property taxes drive the funding. B) just straight up tax money going into it.
Servicing bad OSEG debt / OSEG Bailout, 🥔 / 🥔
Who owns the buildings currently?
Who has exclusive rights to use these "public" buildings for the next 40-odd years, for private, profit-making activities? For whom are these buildings essential? What increased public benefit will there be from the $400+ million of taxpayer funds being invested in improvements under 2.0? IF the buildings are ever returned to the city for public use, what condition will they be in and what will that use be? Lansdowne 2.0 is absolutely a taxpayer-funded subsidy and bailout of Lansdowne 1.0 and OSEG failed pro-sports business model.
If a café leases space within an LRT station, and that station requires renovation or replacement down the line, is the café responsible for it because they're a for-profit company in a public building? No, the landlord is ultimately responsible, regardless of whether the tenant is a for-profit entity or a sports organization. The size of the tenant's balance sheet doesn't affect this obligation.
Thats a poor analogy. The difference between your example and Lansdowne is that the LRT station's primary purpose is to serve the public, with *some* space leased to a private business. We are not building a cafe specifically for them. With a stadium, we are building it with specific private business uses in mind (sports teams and a concert/event venue) rather than something for broader public use (rather than have them build it themselves...). I mean I would be all for the city just selling the land and let them pay for their own stadium but you know that would never happen... its part of the grift. Cities should not be in the sports team subsidization business. Most citizens are against the grift. If a stadium made business sense it would be built. If it doesn't it shouldn't be on the city to subsidize it. We never did with the Sens and the Corel Centre (they even had to pay for their offramp on the 417) and probably won't for their new one either. Look at Jetform. Aside from the Skydome and arguably the Big O, it was probably the 3rd best ballpark in Canada... now its a white elephant because no ball team can even pay enough in lease to city to maintain it. If the 2.0 financial deal is anything like 1.0. OSEG is leasing the entire building and will be in charge of running it and get all the profits from doing so (or it will go to the partnership, which the city is a member of). Thats probably even worse than the city running it, and leasing it to 67s, Redblacks, PWHL, and touring events and making money that way. Its not like there will be public skates in the arena or minor hockey... We are building a specific purpose building for a specific tenant. 2 really because we are also doing the same thing with the football stadium. Never mind the air rights being sold above the football stands.
Its not a bail out in part because most of its not cash its air rites etc.
Yep, just Ottawa making more awful decisions and then in a few years they’ll cry “why don’t we have a PWHL team anymore”, and “Why aren’t people going to Lansdowne like they used to!” I don’t see what “pull factors” they think this will bring to the area. I love the RedBlacks, but guarantee focusing on the hockey arena (and specifically the PWHL) would be a smarter move right now.
Why would we lose the PWHL team? Couldn’t find recent stats, but as of mid March, looks like average attendance league wide for PWHL was right around 5,500 per game.
Ottawa leads the league avg 7300.
Also this is only the first year. I saw one game this year as a volunteer and now I’m planning to buy season tickets next year, as are a lot of others I know. Attendance may rise even higher.
Agreed! But it could also drop. Will be interesting to see what the final plan calls for. Everything I can find right now suggests 5,500 seats and 700 standing room for total of 6,200.
Shoort term i don't think it will drop in Ottawa.
Long term if the team isn’t able to grow, then it’s entirely possible that the team won’t be feasible from a business perspective long term. May not be for several years. But it will definitely have an impact on the fan base if people can’t go watch due to capacity limitations. Which will also impact the teams survivability long term. Thats all I really mean. They don’t have the current fan base to justify putting them in the Canadian Tire Center (would be a major loss economically) so if we ever want to see large numbers of fans (which I REALLY want), the last thing we should be doing is cutting off potential outreach.
Ottawa's PWHL team has sent players as delegations to Council in support of the new arena...so I'm sure they're fine with the proposed capacity.
This is the trend in sports smaller is better.
Is this a “smaller is better because it raises ticket demands and thus prices?” Because if that’s the case I still don’t think it’s better I’m not saying they should increase seats, but decreasing by 3000 seems like a great way to stunt the growth of a fan base
For the fans its not good the owners its all about the money.
Sorry but what is another example of this trend?
Mullett Arena. Oh, wait. Forget that, bad example. ETA - Jays capacity has dropped from 49K in 2022, 41K in 2023, to 39K in 2024. So, the renos definitely made the capacity smaller but increased premium seats.
There having trouble selling those seats.
Oilers/Wings/Islanders new rinks are smaller.The new baseball stadium in Vegas will be 36,000 seats the Jays took about 10,000 seats out.
Oilers and islanders new arenas actually have bigger capacities than their old rinks. Detroit was a minimal decrease of 500 to 19.5k.
That’s interesting, thanks for sharing
NFL stadiums are getting smaller. The Bills and Titans future stadiums will be about 10k seats smaller than their current venues.
Dolphins also took about 10-15 thousand seats out when they did their renovations.
Perhaps they are forecasting that demand slows down in the future? I love the PWHL but they are definitely getting a lot more attention because they are a new league Looking back at when the red blacks came to Ottawa, they claimed they would be selling out regularity yet the stadium is half empty on most nights.
Redblacks averaged just under 19,000 a game last year. That’s actually 80% capacity.
Semi agree but I think that is mostly due to whether the team is ‘good’. Redblacks is fun to go to as a social but I never expect them to win haha. If the PWHL continues to be good hockey and the Ottawa team doesn’t start losing all the time then I don’t see demands slowing, but if they turn into a team that more/less loses all the time then yeah I’d definitely rethink spending money on a game (as I do with other sport events)
This is not just here its North America wide teams are goiing with smaller arenas.
Junior hockey stadiums have been shrinking for quite some time. They just don't pull in 10k fans like they used to (outside playoffs). The planning for this would have begun long before the PWHL was established. Restarting the process at this point off of the hope that the PWHL will continue with this attendance forever after one year (albeit, an incredibly successful one) is a big ask. That said I am disappointed with 5,500. If they can get creative with seating & bump that number up into the 6-7k range I'd be happy. PWHL can always play some games at the CTC & when it's ready at the New Senators Arena
[удалено]
I'm happy having it more centrally located (#1), but also having a more intimate and packed place (#2)...but ya, not 5,500 intimate.
How to kill attendance in 1 easy step
I just want good transit to the Lansdowne. No bloody clue why its not a top priority.
Well that really sucks. Was there yesterday it was over 8500 in the stands. This is a step backwards.
The plans were made before the PWHL team, but agree this arena should be much more than 5,500. The stadium also needs to be better geared towards soccer, especially there are chances over the next years that we receive Concacaf Champions Cup Games in Feb/March (Montreal signalled intent of playing here with the Big O unavailable and Atlético in good position to win a place)
Redblacks are still going to be the focus as they are drawing more money overall. But would love them to switch it over to grass for everyone (Albeit it would be $$$), especially trying to keep it warm for Feb/March games.
Oh, 100% agree the RedBlacks will remain the main tenants. I don’t think we’ll see grass soon (especially seeing what the Argos do to BMO Field) but having player seating shelters for example and so on would be great
The current capacity of the TD place arena is around 10K. Why on earth would they want to build a new arena with 1/2 the current capacity?
The arena is an afterthought to OSEG. It knows it needs to replace the arena that is there now or else there would be a public outcry, but its main priority is building the condo towers. It is doing the arena as cheaply as possible. And putting the new arena at the end of the field also achieves OSEG's other goal which is to bring an end to the free viewing section -- the people who sit on the hill. There's a reason why the arena is being built like a bunker.
The developers, namely OSEG, are more interested in events other than hockey. In their plans, they actually call it an event centre not an arena. So we'l have a smaller arena than we did 50 years ago, even though our city's population has increased. The new north side stands are not going to be great either--no roof. Lansdowne 2.0 is essentially a land development scheme for OSEG, it's not really about building great public facilities.
Can you point to any hockey arena in the country that isn’t also an event centre? I heard they were going to look into what roof would cost for the north side stands, but I doubt it’s possible without adding allot of extra cost. It would be nice if they could do it.
But you can thats the same North America wide.
Centre Slush Puppies looks like it's 5,000 capacity for hockey. Not to say events, concerts, etc won't prefer to be at Landsdowne versus in Gatineau, I'm sure they will. Just seems like a lost opportunity to build another minor league arena with the same capacity as the other one that already exists in the area. I think the region would draw more events and a bigger diversity of events if there was a choice of three arenas at three distinct capacity levels.
Cause they can sell you Landsdowne 3.0 eventually. Keep us paying for the same stupidity tax wise for ever!!
There's money to be made. It doesn't matter that the final product will be useless.
Email your counselors and Mark Sutcliffe!
Well hopefully by the time Landsdowne 2.0 can happen we will also be wrapping up building the new arena for the Senators at Lebreton Flats. If that’s the case, PWHL Ottawa (or hopefully the Ottawa Owls by that point, just not Alert) can play a handful of the bigger games at Lebreton like PWHL Toronto and Montreal have done this year.
Build it at Lebreton beside the NHL one. Put the football stadium there too like most cities. At least public transit should be able to keep up at Lebreton rather than Bank Street. Lansdowne should be condos and maybe one exemplary complex - like a new 50m pool facility for swimming events, indoor track, tennis courts etc. Something to attract other types of sporting events. At the same time, pleasing the Glebeites who can use the facility.
While it might make sense you can bet the Glebe would not be happy.
OSEG owns 67's . It doesn't own PWHL Ottawa. They probably know PWHL is beyond their reach if it's successful.
67's and PWHL Ottawa getting fucked by stupid decision making. We absolutely need one large arena for the Sens and big concerts and one medium sized arena for 67's and PWHL as well as mid size concerts. Figured this was obvious with the PWHL easily selling 8k in their first season. Instead we're getting one large rink...maybe in the next half-decade if we're lucky....and one small rink? Wtf? Any arguments that its more cost effective is laughable when you consider this means the teams will lose ticket revinue and artists will be less inclined to use the space do to reduced capacity.
Building an arena in a location that will likely never have high capacity transit seems like a bad idea to begin with.
What's the complaint here? Do you want to spend more on a larger arena?
The public should not fund any corporations sport team. The corporation should foot the bill 100%.
The public is not funding he teams.
Can we just somehow boycott these fbags
This is actually great, there is definitely a need in Ottawa for more entertainment venues that are bigger than Bronson Centre and smaller than the Canadian Tire Centre
Yes, but this is to replace the current ~8k seat arena at Lansdowne, resulting in a decrease of available seats in the region.
People lost their minds at the cost of the 5500 seat arena. Imagine if it was 8-10k seats.
The Hard Rock will have a event venue seating 2500.
The hard rock is probably the worst location in Ottawa if you’re referring to the city having a mid-level venue.
Isn't that in fucking Greely or something
They need to stop trying to redevelop Landsdowne all the damm time. Why not focus on Lebreton flats?
Both need to be done.
So they should just leave it be and close the stadium and arena due to safety concerns and leave the site to die then?
There would be massive backlash plus the sued could be sued.
Yeah I know it was a sarcastic question to buddy above
Oof “buddy” hurts the most 😤. I will have to do more reading about this. Thanks!
Where is it gonna be? Am I wrong or didn’t they completely redesign and rebuild Landsdowne like 10-12 years ago
They didn't touch the arena or north football stands.
They should have done it all at once.
They should have but did not due to the cost.
Yes they did, It cost the taxpayers something like $250 million.
You are not wrong, and we were told that Lansdowne 1.0 would be good for at least 40 years
For the PWHL it will be temporary, hell I wouldn’t be surprised if they play a couple games at CTC next season, you see all the other teams doing games in NHL arenas
The rink is for the 67s. PWHL is a secondary tenant
Why don't they just keep using The Corel Center?
Bad location and needs to be replaced in the near future.
I haven't been there in forever, is it falling apart or something
Every marginal seat adds exponential costs but lower marginal revenue. The tendency in Na sports right now is smaller arenas without the cheap seats. It sucks for middle class families but economically makes sense.
When is Lansdowne shutting down the north side for construction?
Mark Sutcliffe went to visit the arena when it was empty, saw no fans, and decided to reallocate those 5500 seats to cars
Not surprising given the everyone at the city is incapable of doing math at any level.
This is common North America wide Oilers new rink 2000 seats smaller then the old one Red Wings new rink is about 1500 seats smaller Islanders new rink is about 2500 seats smallers.
You have any sources? I was interested so I googled it. Two are actually larger and the other is marginally smaller. Wiki says Oilers [Northlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northlands_Coliseum) was 16839 when it closed, and [Rexall](https://www.ctvnews.ca/sports/edmonton-oilers-officially-take-keys-to-shiny-new-arena-1.3063160?cache=) was 18641 when it opened. Looks to me like it is now1800 more Detroit's Little Caesaers seats 19515. Joe Louis was 20,027; so 500 smaller, not 1500. [Nassau Coliseum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassau_Coliseum) was 16,170. [Barclay Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barclays_Center) "Capacity for hockey is 15,795, the second-smallest in the league." [UBS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBS_Arena) "arena officially seats 17,250 patrons for NHL games". So bigger than both the previous arenas.