LeBreton ‘Plan B’ in wings if arena talks with Senators fail, NCC says

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The clock is ticking on the Ottawa Senators and the National Capital Commission has a “Plan B” ready to go if the team decides not to build a new arena on LeBreton Flats, NCC CEO Tobi Nussbaum says.

Nussbaum had no significant update to offer on the negotiations after Thursday’s NCC board meeting, although he said talks were continuing and he was optimistic a deal could be reached to move the National Hockey League team downtown.

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Last fall, the NCC gave the Senators’ new owner, Michael Andlauer, an extra year to make a decision on LeBreton Flats, but Nussbaum said Thursday there was no deadline for a deal.

“There’s no question that there will be a point at which we will either have a lease or not. I can’t say with 100 per cent certainty when that is. Is it in September? I certainly hope so,” Nussbaum told reporters. “There’s no ultimatum at this stage, just both sides working in good faith to get this done by the September deadline.”

If a deal isn’t reached, the NCC is ready to forge ahead on its own.

“We were very clear when we approved the master-concept plan back in 2020 that our first hope was to have a major attraction, a major event centre there, but we also indicated that, should that not happen, there is a Plan B for those parcels within LeBreton Flats. Clearly there’s a great need for housing and a great need for mixed-use development in the capital,” Nussbaum said.

The NCC has been talking with the team for a decade about building an arena closer to downtown than its current home base in Kanata. The first deal collapsed after infighting between the development partners. Then the death of former team owner Eugene Melnyk and the sale of the Senators franchise to Andlauer in 2023 stalled negotiations again.

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More recently, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has mused about using federal government land earmarked for transfer to the city in this week’s federal budget as a potential arena site.

“If there’s an opportunity to take a piece of land that the federal government doesn’t want anymore and have that be the site for an attraction, and an attraction can be a lot of different things — maybe that’s an arena, maybe it’s not — but we need to look at that. We need a plan for the future of downtown Ottawa,” Sutcliffe told reporters this week.

Ultimately, it will be up to the Senators to decide if and where the new arena should go, Nussbaum said. He stressed that it was “not a competition” between the NCC and the City of Ottawa to host the team, but he made a strong pitch for LeBreton Flats.

“From a transit perspective, you cannot imagine a better site,” he said. “I think the Senators are very much taken by the fact that LeBreton Flats is growing. It’s going to become part of the downtown core. The distinction between LeBreton Flats and the downtown is really going to disappear over the coming years.”

LeBreton’s proximity to Gatineau also expands the team’s market and is another advantage for LeBreton, Sutcliffe said.

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“But, if that should change and the Senators make decision that LeBreton Flats is not the location for them and they have another site in mind … we will graciously step aside and permit that to happen,” he said. “This is not a competition. While an arena is our first choice (for LeBreton Flats) — we’d love to have a major destination on site — if not, we’ve got a plan for a mixed use development along Albert Street and we will proceed apace with the development of LeBreton Flats as a whole.”

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