The stadium sounds like it is a sad state, question is, how much will it cost to repair the place? If the price tag gets a little high, could it kill it before it even starts. Another thing is, is the other side of the stadium in that great shape, since the other side was condemed. Will the owners have the cash to pay for a part of the cost, or is the city in it for the whole shebang? One good thing, is the potential owners are moving slow into it, instead of jumping in with both feet, finding themselves in hot water. It will be nice to see the Ottawa Renegades back in the league! Will be nice to see how things go in the coming months!
Repairing it seemed surprisingly cheap (relatively speaking...I couldn't afford it :? ) but rebuilding it you would expect to cost a hell of a lot.
The way the current ownership group seems to want to do it is to build the stadium AND residential buildings there so they can make the money back with those.
What I'm wondering is this: If a new stadium has to be built as part of the competition, how many groups will submit a bid? Because the winner has to follow through with his plan. Bulding a stadium is a far cry from putting together a nice park. I wonder how many groups the stadium would discourage.
Money is really not a issue with this group.Back in the fall they made a offer to the city to but all of landsdowne for about $400 million.Part of the deal is the group would pay $80 million up front and then the the rest spread over time.There plan was to build a new stadium/arena plus hotels/condos stores etc.This did not go far is some on city council did not like the idea.I think if the city say ww will agree to a 20 year lease but you have to pay for all repairs etc.I trhink the group would jump on that in a heart beat.
The stadium is not really that bad, I'm really surprised when I here people talking about the decrepid conditions.
It's a great stadium for football with individual fold up seats, excellent site lines. The upper deck has bench seats but you can look down on to the field.
Have you ever been to Ivor Wynne?? I know they have tried to spruce it up but it is in bad shape - no seats just benches. A lot of seats behind the goal lines and if you are in the north stands low down you can't see the play at the other end unless you stand.
The only good thing is the big screen.
Good article here I think but not sure what the Ottawa people here think. I like where the author says Lansdowne isn’t just a park for the Glebe people.
Of course, as the article says, about $40 mill to improve the stadium to make it a very excellent facility which the developers would do in return to develop part of the site residentially and commercially. Sounds logical to me if football is chosen to stay on the site. This being a fairly high class area, no one wants to cheap out on the stadium upgrade if they are going to keep the stadium there. That would not be good.
I like that article but only wish it had been written sooner. Some of the comments made during the whole process were head-against-the-wall retarded and pointless.
Some would suggest, for example, that we build a stadium in other areas. Aside from the detail that THIS IS NOT BEING PROPOSED, it was pointed out that many locations were not feasible for a variety of reasons. Little things, like THE CITY DOES NOT OWN THE LAND.
Or we were told to wait until a sports consortium of sorts decides to build a stadium elsewhere. Whether this took 6 month or forever and a day wasn’t a real issue for them, since they just wanted it gone.
Another sugested not bothering building a 30,000 stadium now because soon, we’ll need one for 50,000. Great. Whwn we need that one, is there any chance you’ll ask that we hold off until we need one of 75,000?
Lastly was my personal favourite: “Don’t build a stadium there, because the stadium is ugly”. I guess it never occured to them that perhaps the new one would be slightly more modern than the one built by 1960’s standards. I doubt anyone will propose an exact replica.
I look forward to climbing to the very top of the southside stands and baring my pale white ass at the Glebe residents.
Interesting article. It seems like common sense. What is happening with the city of Ottawa? wasn't everyone up in arms about a 50 dollar levy on snow removal? How much is the city gonna spend on Lansdowne? they obviously need private sector money.
I look forward to climbing to the very top of the southside stands and baring my pale white ass at the Glebe residents.
Made my morning reading this CRF, too friggin funny! I was depressed reading in the Hamilton paper all the health sciences people (not direct health care workers BTW) and other publicly paid people here that are way overpaid in the $100,000 club, some of which I know are are lazy and just spend time in useless meetings doing nothing and figuring out how to make more money for themselves and less to other people.
I needed that, thanks. :thup: But I'm not sure I want to see you do this to be honest, could be an ugly site me thinks.
I actually had a lady at my table say that the reason she wanted the stadium gone was that because of the way the park was designed it was very windy around the buildings, and when she walked her dog it blew her hair.
No joke.
I swear some of the Glebe attendees at these consultations just showed up because they had nothing better to do and had no real interest in the topics at hand.
It blew her her, oh boy. I hope she doesn't walk downtown in any city over 300,000 because there will be buildings that will cause a lot more wind and little swirls than what she would find around a stadium like FCS.
Good luck guys, I don't envy the fight ahead at all if this is what you're up agains't.
I found this which I thought was interesting on funding of stadiums, US article:
"Proponents of using tax money to fund sports arenas often cite civic pride and community identity and visibility as benefits that can't be quantified in dollars, a notion with which Chapin agrees.
"The public sector routinely invests in things that do not have economic benefits, such as parks or museums," he said. "Sports are a real communal experience and can be a positive thing for a community."
But there can be a flip side to the image issue, Chapin cautioned. Take, for example, the image problems created by the publicly funded Seattle Kingdome, an ugly, concrete domed stadium. After suffering maintenance problems that required even more public money, it became something of a public embarrassment for the city and was torn down in the late 1990s despite tens of millions of dollars debt still owed on the building. The city built two new stadiums to replace it, with a bill approaching
$1 billion - most of it coming from the public coffers."
So basically, the author is saying “better make it right the first time so we don’t p*ss off the public?” which I think the Ottawa group really wants to do.
I think so Kristjan. I personally would rather, if Ottawa is going to bring back football, that they do it right with the stadium even if it means a extra year or two past 2010 to get a team going again. The right ownership group seems to be in place now and doing the stadium right is the key otherwise, as the article mentions, a stadium can be a public image nightmare with it looking ugly and not eye appealing. The good thing now is that there are more architectural advancements which allows for ideas to be a bit less expensive perhaps while making the stadium look good. I especially like that Salt Lake one I mentioned above and gave a link.
