Far-fetched ideas are common when people talk about the Ottawa Senators building a new arena in downtown Ottawa. For instance, take Tobi Nussbaum, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Capital Commission (NCC). In June he said he was “quite confident” that the Senators would build a new arena on property leased from the NCC at LeBreton Flats.
That’s unlikely because anything the NCC is proposing to the Senators to get them out of their current digs at Canadian Tire Centre (CTC) doesn’t make business sense. Anything that would, probably involves about $800 million in government money to bankroll the new rink.
I can already hear the good burghers of Ottawa wailing about still having to drive halfway to Peterborough to see the Senators play if the LeBreton Flats deal falls through. Yet they’ll also vent their fury at the idea of taxpayer dollars going to line the pockets of billionaires while the homeless wander the streets and emergency room lineups grow ever longer.
Tough. A new arena isn’t about any of that. It’s a business decision and moving out of Kanata isn’t a good one. That is unless one or more levels of government pay for most of the new arena. If they don’t, the Senators will be staying in Kanata for a long time to come. Here’s why.
A New Rink in Downtown Ottawa – What’s In It for the Senators?
The first question Senators owner Michael Andlauer and his partners will ask themselves is whether moving to a new rink closer to downtown will help them sell more tickets and luxury boxes at higher prices. The answer is no.
If the Senators put a quality product on the ice, they have one of the better attendance numbers in the league. Last season, even with a team that didn’t make the postseason, the average attendance per game at CTC was 16,575 – the best in years. Not only that but there were 15 sellouts on 41 home games. It’s true that on revenue from ticket sales the Senators ranked 25th in the league, but they played to 90% capacity. Does anyone really think they’d do better playing at a downtown Ottawa location? It’s not location that counts, it’s the quality of the product on the ice.
The price of Senators tickets is the lowest in Canada by far and one of the lowest in the NHL. Even so, playing in a rink downtown won’t change that. Ottawa is a government town and civil servants don’t buy high-priced tickets or luxury boxes. But high-tech executives and the companies they work for do.
They are located in Kanata and other neighbourhoods in west-end Ottawa. Five hundred companies are located in Kanata North alone. Many of them are among the fastest-growing technology companies in North America. Together they provide people living there with an annual average income of $55,000 – almost 20% more than the average Ottawa income. What’s more, households in Kanata make $30,000 more than their Ottawa counterparts.
Not only are people living in west-end Ottawa well-heeled, but Kanata alone has a population of almost 140,000. Add in Barrhaven and Stittsville and the number of people living around CTC approaches about one-quarter of the entire population of Ottawa. That compares to just 5,000 people living in downtown Ottawa.
How does moving away from their most well-off customers to a location downtown make any sense for the Senators? It doesn’t. They aren’t a social welfare agency. So why is it their job to relocate their arena to places that more people in Ottawa would find convenient? There has to be a business case. There isn’t.
What’s Wrong with the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata?
The CTC opened its doors in 1996 making it 27 years old. That’s not especially long in the tooth for an NHL arena. The average age of a rink is 34 and the median is 26. That means half the arenas in the league are younger than the CTC and half older.
Will CTC need to be replaced? Sure it will – in time. Yet there is no burning need for the Senators to build a new home now. They could stay in Kanata indefinitely if they liked.
CTC is well-designed with great sight lines. New or expanded luxury boxes could be added. Not only that, but CTC is just off the Queensway – the major artery through Ottawa and it has ample parking. Is that really any less handy than the light rail system that some believe would be a better way to get fans to games?
Everyone knows that Ottawa’s light rail system is a blazing tire fire that is constantly breaking down. Just imagine the reaction of fans as the city explains to them that they’ll have to carpool downtown to catch a playoff game because the rail system is out of commission for several weeks. As of writing, Ottawa’s rail system has been out of commission for three weeks with no sure date on when it will operate again.
What’s more, the convenience factor with light rail is over-rated. Fans will still need to park their cars at satellite parking lots around the city in order to catch a train to a downtown rink. Not only that, but the capacity of stations serving the light rail system is limited and was never designed to handle crowds of up to 17,000 heading home after watching a hockey game. Thousands of revelers on Canada Day this summer found that out the hard way when transit authorities closed Pimisi station outside LeBreton Flats because it wasn’t designed to handle large crowds.
If a new arena were built on the 75 acres owned by the Senators in Kanata, new shops, bars, restaurants, homes and condos could be built around the new facility. Plenty of hockey fans already come early to games to visit the Tanger Outlets mall close to CTC.
Related: 25 Best Senators’ Memories from 25 Years at Canadian Tire Centre
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It’s simply not true that Kanata couldn’t measure up to Ottawa’s downtown core as a hockey and entertainment destination. LeBreton Flats isn’t within a walk of anywhere anyone would want to go. Even if it were, downtown Ottawa has been hollowed out by the COVID-pandemic and the federal government’s decision to allow most civil servants to work the majority of their time from home.
Far fewer people now work in the downtown core and even fewer live there. Many restaurants, shops and bars have been boarded up. What’s more, homelessness, drugs and crime blight much of the downtown core with areas like the once-fashionable Byward Market now simply unsafe to visit.
Ottawa Taxpayers Must Pony Up Money for New Senators Arena
New NHL arenas such as Bell Centre in Montreal and Scotiabank Arena in Toronto were, for the most part, privately financed. Yet no owner of any NHL hockey team in a small market like Ottawa is going to build a new arena without a government handout.
Go ahead and call it what you want. Rail against “socialism for capitalists” if it makes you feel any better. In the end, the City of Ottawa and one or both of the federal and Ontario governments will be forced to come to the table with bags of money for the Senators.
Take the Calgary Flames for example. Their new arena project will cost $1.223 billion of which the arena alone will account for $800 million. The Flames will pick up 44% of the total cost of the project while the City of Calgary and the Province of Alberta will cover 29% and 27% respectively. Does anyone really believe that the Senators won’t be coming around with their tin cup looking for more than a few shekels to fund their new home?
The City of Ottawa has already said it will pony up money with Mayor Mark Sutcliffe explaining in an interview with TSN in March saying, “I wouldn’t rule out a scenario where there are some city dollars going into it. But I want to be clear by saying I’m not ruling it out, doesn’t mean I’m in favour of it, doesn’t mean I support the idea of the city writing a big cheque.”
Sure you don’t Mr. Mayor, but in the end we both know you’ll be looking for your chequebook if and when a deal is struck for the Senators to move downtown!
I don’t blame the Senators for looking for a handout because the business case for moving the team out of Kanata just can’t be made. CTC is a fully depreciated asset and they need to milk it dry. Not only that, but it’s cheaper to renovate and upgrade the arena. When that’s no longer an option, building a new rink on land they already own in Kanata will be less expensive than acquiring and building anew on downtown property.
An oft-cited problem with the NCC proposal is that the Senators can only lease the land at LeBreton Flats. The money is in owning real estate not leasing it. With only six acres being set aside for the Senators’ new arena, there isn’t much opportunity to earn money from adjacent real estate developments to subsidize the arena operations.
LeBreton Flats also pose risks that are hard to size up. The first is environmental. The land is contaminated and the cost of cleaning it up is estimated at $200 – $300 million. Who pays for that and if it’s the Senators, what happens if the costs are higher than first thought? Few risks are as open-ended as environmental risks.
There is also political risk. LeBreton Flats is on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin First Nations and there are overlapping claims on the land from 11 different Algonquin communities. Some want to own a piece of any new arena built and at least one also wants an ownership stake in the Senators (from Ian Mendes, “Proposed Senators arena land LeBreton Flats in dispute as First Nations group prepares lawsuit”, The Athletic, 4/28/23).
Related: Ottawa Senators Indigenous and Metis Connections
These claims need to be resolved and the interests of the Algonquins must be taken into account. The resulting negotiations could be very long and years of costly litigation are possible. Why would the Senators want any part of that?
Senators Will Stay in Kanata
Ottawa fans can be sure of one thing. To where the Senators move and when is far from settled and could take a long time to figure out. The City of Ottawa and the NHL have acknowledged that the team’s new ownership group may settle on staying in Kanata. Also, Sutcliffe has made it clear that there are other locations in central Ottawa besides LeBreton Flats where the Senators could move. By last count, there are seven.
All of this sounds to me like there’s a lot more negotiating to come and the Senators hold all the cards.