Ottawa Senators president and CEO Cyril Leeder said Tuesday that LeBreton Flats is the only site in serious consideration for the hockey club’s new arena.
Leeder made the remarks during a panel at the City Building Summit, where several business leaders provided updates on major ongoing projects, including the new Civic hospital campus, the airport, and LRT Stage two.
The site for a new arena to replace the 30-year-old Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata has been a topic of speculation for some time. Leeder said the potential project is still in the early planning stages.
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“I would say the only one we’ve been focused on right now is LeBreton Flats,” he said in response to an audience question. “Obviously there are other sites within the city and we’ve looked at a number of those. Probably too early to say definitively where the arena is going to go but, at this point, the only site we’re serious about is LeBreton Flats.”
Leeder said a new 800,000-square-foot arena — which the hockey organization, the city, and local stakeholders have said should be constructed downtown — would cost around $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion, with surrounding infrastructure expected to cost three to five times that amount.
“You’re talking about a three- to six-billion-dollar project,” Leeder said. “It’s a big, big project.”
Last week after an NCC board meeting, NCC CEO Tobi Nussbaum said talks were continuing with the Ottawa Senators and he was optimistic a deal could be reached to move the National Hockey League team to LeBreton Flats. Nussbaum also suggested that the NCC had a backup plan for the site in case a deal is not reached with the Senators.
Earlier this year in January, the NCC agreed to extend its memorandum of understanding with the Senators to the fall of 2024 to give the two sides more time to negotiate. The MOU was originally slated to expire last fall.
Following previous owner Eugene Melynk’s death nearly two years ago, the Senators were granted preferred-bidder status in June 2022 to negotiate with the NCC on a plan to build an events centre that would be the crown jewel of the Crown corporation’s long-term effort to redevelop the Flats.
While talks have progressed, the process slowed while the Senators sought new ownership. Toronto businessman Michael Andlauer assumed control of the team last September and has been considering his next steps for a new arena.
Andlauer has repeatedly said he believes that relocating the team closer to the city’s core is the right move, but hasn’t explicitly named a preferred site.
After taking over ownership in September, Andlauer described LeBreton, a federally owned site just west of downtown, as “maybe the best piece of land in the inner city probably in North America available for development.”
At that time, Leeder told OBJ that nothing was set in stone on the real estate front. He said the club would carefully assess all potential scenarios – including what can be done to improve the existing building in Kanata – before making a final decision.
“I don’t think we’ve seriously considered anything at this point,” he added in September. “I know there are different people pitching different sites to Michael, but I couldn’t tell you today if you could fit an arena on any of the alternative sites downtown that have been floated. That work hasn’t even taken place yet.”
Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and other members of the business community have suggested repeatedly that LeBreton is not the only viable option for a downtown rink, noting that the federal government’s plan to offload aging downtown office towers could open up new pockets of land for development in the core.
– With files from David Sali
