Lansdowne’s A Huge Fiscal Sinkhole
Evan Potter, the University of Ottawa associate professor of communications, doesn’t see the value of Lansdowne 2.0.
From X:
#Lansdowne 2.0: Bad deal for #ottawa
$9.2M loss last year-again.
It has never paid out a distribution to #ottcity and is never expected to do so. @PlanteSteph613 @WilsonLo24 why do you want to impose new 1% Lansdowne Tax on us?@KenGray @DevineSean https://t.co/bJt5ClDdMH— Evan H. Potter ?? ?? (@EvanHPotter) January 27, 2025
Worth noting, and never mentioned anywhere but here, but the Redblacks have the second lowest team attendance in the Canadian Football League.
The new northside stands are being built for the football team which has had a very troubled financial picture prior to the Ottawa Sport and Entertainment Group.
That should not be lost on councillors approving Lansdowne 2.0. In fact, does anyone see how 2.0 will create more revenue than 1.0?
Maybe they’ll give the financial picture a new name beyond waterfall. In reality as we approach $1 billion to be spent on Lansdowne, the capital stream should probably be called sinkhole. Could we not have turned this spot into an iconic park or just sold the land
There’s no way the city can get back its money on this expenditure.
So why are we doing this, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe?
Couldn’t we not put this Lansdowne money into the budget hole or in buses for better service.
Ken Gray
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In exchange for increasing the rent from a reported $1/year to $500,000/year, the city will take on a north of $5,000,000/year debt service. Now does it make sense?
No it doesn’t ; but it does make sense to ask what ( ie. who …. and WHY ) is driving this ?
Recall that Judge Hackland absconded from making a proper decision ( about all the ways in which the City broke various aspects of the Municipal Act in Lansdowne 1.0) by saying that if the citizenry didn’t like it they could vote the whole Council out in the next election.
To me this can only be ‘explained’ by combo of the quiet power of ‘developer’ type $$ plus the City’s own incompetence …. to let these guys effectively have all the control while on the surface this is a ‘ partnership ‘ situation. A partner who is not able to use their authority of make a good deal is a sham. On the other hand this was never going to be a good deal for the public … even if we were only looking at the impossible transportation aspects of the ‘plan’. The stadium should have been moved to Bayview area ( 10 years ago ) and where the LRT and O-Line intersect
The Saskatchewan Roughriders play in Mosaic Stadium (which replaced its predecessor, Taylor Field), an open-air stadium that holds roughly 40,000 viewers. Fans at Mosaic Stadium subject themselves to high winds and sub-zero temperatures during late-fall football games. It’s time for Ottawans to “man-up” and behave like our western counterparts. Does the city need to spend another $1B so a few people can sit undercover to watch a limited number of football (CFL and NASL) games each year?
Good observation about putting additional municipal tax dollars into fixing transit than in keeping the Landsdowne sink hole going.
I’d vote for any provincial election candidate who said their government as a policy would make as a condition of more provincial money for Ottawa transit, an exit of any more municipal finances wasted on support of the Landsdowne development.
Sisco,
Isn’t the “renovation” going to mean the removal of the existing roof, not adding covering? My personal theory is that OSEG wants the roof gone because it will give the owners of the lower-floor apartments in the new buildings north of the stadium a better, less-restricted view of the field. That means OSEG can get a higher price for those units.