Is it Possible?
A project the size of a downtown arena at LeBreton is going to have hurdles. Is the location right? How do we pay for it? These are not easy questions but for the most part they can be answered with some degree of certainty. However the one aspect of this deal, the one that is by far the most likely to derail the whole thing, is the two parties sitting across the table from one another.
Eugene Melnyk and the NCC are the equivalent of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object–chances are no one is going to give. The two sides are diametrically opposed.
Eugene Melnyk is a self-made businessman, he’s used to getting what he wants, he doesn’t play well with others, and tends to think rules don’t apply to him. In a process that will require humility, collaboration and patience, Melnyk is already at a disadvantage.
If Melnyk thought working with the City of Ottawa was difficult (despite the fact Ottawa has about the nicest mayor on the planet), he’s in for a major shock working with the NCC. The NCC is best compared to the Empire in Star Wars: a faceless, unaccountable, unelected bureaucracy that is used to spending a lot of money only to see projects blow up in their face. They say they’ve changed…oh how they’ve changed, but the recent head-butting with the city over the LRT route shows that this is an organization still living in denial.
On the spectrum of projects that a self-important organization that likes to enlighten everyone with its brilliance would support, LRT ranks pretty high. Light rail checks all the progressive boxes: it’s green, it’s sustainable, it’s promotes a transit-oriented, smart growth strategy, it even has rail stations with aboriginal names. Yet despite all this, the NCC still throws up every roadblock possible to the project under the guise of protecting a “park” that is presently a highway. They make demands of the city without offering a dime to pay for them. In short, if there were ever a project that the NCC should be eager to collaborate on, the LRT is it.
Contrast that to the idea of building a hockey rink on public land by the river. It’s almost impossible to envision a scenario whereby the NCC could support a half-billion dollar palace for blue collar fans and millionaires to drink beer and engage in a full-contact sports. It’s the antithesis of LRT. The NCC likes arts, culture, green things and unobstructed views.
All that said, they didn’t reject the idea outright, so there’s hope right? Sure. For a project to have a shot, it would have to involve a lot of careful planning, a ton of collaboration, a sense of national vision, and a lot of partners.
The building itself would have to be an architectural gem, something that would become an icon on the city’s waterfront. It would have to be green, perhaps a zero-energy building or at least something with a high LEED rating. Finally it would likely require a partnership with a national institution creating a space for an attraction that would be of interest to Canadians coast-to-coast. While the first two conditions can be met with a lot of additional money (which is why a partner would be so important), the last requires diplomacy, collaboration and vision to pull off.
The NCC, fairly, is not going to give up such a prime piece of land for a hockey rink, casino and shopping mall, they want something grand something worthy of a national capital. So what could such a project entail? Glad you asked. Given that the centrepiece of the development would be an arena, it would make sense to reach out to some sport-related institutions for a partnership. What about a brand new Canadian Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in partnership with the Canadian Olympic Committee? Ottawa will likely never host an Olympics Games (nor should we), but as the capital, having a central place where we can celebrate our Olympic and other amateur athletes would be a fitting use of the space. Some training facilities could even be included to make the site into a multi-purpose sports and athletics hub.
If that’s a little too ambitious, why not partner with Hockey Canada to create a National Centre of Excellence. Hockey Canada has a heavy presence in Western Canada, so it might take some convincing, but turning the arena into national hockey training and research facility is about as Canadian a thing as I can think of. Perhaps even a national sponsor, like Nike, could be brought on board to help fund the development and run the training and research facility.
For a bit more outside-the-box thinking, the proposal could feature a zero-energy building in partnership with the National Research Council and, to solve another problem, the National Museum of Science and Technology. This could involve moving the already committed envelope of money for the refurbishment of the dilapidated facility on St. Laurent to the new site. The NHL recently made a big announcement surrounding green initiatives, so having the arena become a showcase for Canadian green energy innovation, and bringing in national technology and energy partners for funding could help solve two problems at once.
The key to all these ideas is collaboration. If the Sens come forward with a plan that doesn’t feature a partnership with national scope, I don’t see the NCC approving it. This is what complicates the entire project, regardless of how perfect the site is. The NCC owns the land, and despite their recent perestroika, they are still not going to just hand it over to Melnyk without a lot of delicate negotiations, strong conditions, and close partnerships. See the problem?
When Melnyk was fighting with the city over his casino idea, an issue he truly did get jobbed on, he was hardly a paragon of tact and humility. Melnyk likes to talk, put a microphone in front of him and there’s a good chance he’ll speak his mind. He’s not used to having to choose his words carefully, to hold his cards close, to consider other’s before he speaks. This is a man who managed to alienate a near-god in Ottawa, Daniel Alfredsson, before giving in. The idea that he would play well with the NCC, let alone be willing to defer to a partner to help champion the idea, is unlikely.
A recent example of this kind of diplomacy was on display at Lansdowne. A partnership involving four wealthy businessmen, John Ruddy, Jeff Hunt, Roger Greenberg and Bill Shenkman managed to negotiate a complex public-private partnership that had overwhelming support in the city, with the exception of a small enclave of malcontents. By its very nature, the fact that these four businessmen were willing to be partners, when a couple of them could have foot the bill solo, shows that they were open to collaboration. Yet despite all that positive energy, the plan was still contentious, long and exhausting, to the point where any one of them could have been forgiven for flying off the handle.
Now picture Eugene Melnyk negotiating with the Friends of Lansdowne.
It simply seems unlikely that Melnyk will have the ability to pull together the kind of national partnership required for such a development, and even more unlikely that he would have the patience to jump through the NCC’s red tape for a decade without losing it.
As for the NCC, if they can’t manage to support a no-brainer like Ottawa’s LRT project without being belligerent, what chance is there that they can find a willing, subordinate partner in Eugene Melnyk?
The two sides in this negotiation are such polar opposites that it seems highly unlikely that they can build the kind of plan that would be required at LeBreton. Even if the site is prefect (it is), and the funding is possible (tricky, but doable), the first time the NCC demanded all NHL players be fluently bilingual, or Melnyk proposed the world’s largest waterslide, the talks would break down pretty quickly. Ironically, the voice of reason in this whole debate, and the man who could bridge the gap, is not exactly known as a peacemaker. John Baird has been around town a lot lately, sprinkling around money and getting things done. He is credited with finally getting the NCC to do something with LeBreton after decades of neglect, and has recently mused about the logic of having a professional sports facility in the middle of nowhere. If Baird wants this deal to happen there a good chance he could at least get the NCC to lower its guard and consider the plan, but the fundamentals would still have to be in place. There’s no scenario where a casino and luxury hotel are going to fly in this location.
Whereas past Sens owners have had the ability to partner with government and sell a win-win scenario that benefitted both parties (see: Rod Bryden’s multiple chances with the City of Ottawa over Plasco), Eugene Melnyk is not known as a consensus builder. This is a man who lays out a plan as a take it or leave it scenario. My fear is that Melnyk will come out of the gate guns blazing looking for maximum public dollars for a plan that minimally reflects the NCC’s vision for the site. If such a campaign involved veiled threats of moving the team (which is not outside the realm of possibility) he could even begin to lose the support of casual Sens fans. Sadly, this is the scenario that seem most likely given Melnyk’s history, a man who famously told Sens fans to “blow themselves up” if they doubted the direction of the team. Is it possible that the Sens could put together a collaborative, visionary plan that satisfied the NCC’s delusions of grandeur? Perhaps. Though sadly the NCC saw no such grand vision when they allowed Claridge to build a bunch of bland condos after an uncontested RFP process left them as the last man standing.
What is more likely is that the Sens are simply doing their due diligence here. Putting forth a plan to satiate the calls for a downtown arena, knowing full well that their plan is likely to be rejected. Then they can say “at least we tried” while retreating back to their home five kilometres from my house to continue their march toward mediocrity. I really hope I’m wrong. I hope that Eugene Melnyk and the Sens can rise to a level they have yet to reach before and put together a plan that blows the doors off everyone’s expectations. I hope that they recognize that this isn’t just a new arena, it’s a chance to re-birth the franchise and establish a solid footing towards a future where talk of fan support and arena troubles are thing of the past.
And if not…there’s always the soon-to-be-abandoned RCMP headquarters…a story for another time.
