Adding 2,000 seats to new Lansdowne Event Centre would cost up to $100 million, city manager says

Delegates from the PWHL and others raised concerns about the size of the new arena in Lansdowne 2.0 at a lengthy committee meeting. CTV’s Leah Larocque reports.

Ottawa’s city manager warns adding 2,000 seats to a new Event Centre at Lansdowne Park would cost an additional $80-$100 million, as the Ottawa Charge warns a 6,600-person capacity arena won’t be big enough for the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) in the future.

The finance and corporate services committee is scheduled to hear from 88 delegations on Wednesday ahead of voting on the $418.8 million Lansdowne 2.0 project. The proposed plan includes a 6,600-capacity arena with 5,850 seats and a new north-side stands at TD Place paid for by taxpayers.

The vice-president of the Professional Women’s Hockey League says the 6,600-person capacity arena would not be “financially viable” for the Ottawa Charge moving forward.

“Capacity has a waterfall effect on the entire business, so it’s not just the number of tickets, but it’s the number of people that come into the building,” Amy Scheer, vice-president of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, told CTV News Ottawa ahead of the committee meeting.

“It impacts your merchandise sales. It impacts your partnership values because it’s less eyeballs viewing all the partner activations, it’s less parking, it’s everything so there’s a waterfall effect that less people in the building impacts all areas of your building, not just from a capacity issue.”

Scheer suggested the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group are building an arena based on attendance for the Ottawa 67’s and not the Charge.

“Over the last several decades, what you’ve seen across North America is stadiums being built that are too big for women but fit men,” Scheer told councillors during the public delegation.

“In like the most cruel twist of fate, we sit here today seeing the absolute reverse where arena is being built that is too small for women and perfect for the men. Honestly, in four decades of working in professional sports, this might be the most disappointing thing I have ever seen. In just two short years, we have built something extraordinary. A women’s hockey league that fills arena, inspires fans and fuels civic pride and we’ve done it with one arm tied behind our backs.”

Attendance figures provided by OSEG show only four of the 13 Ottawa Charge games at TD Place during the 2024-25 season had the capacity exceed 6,600 fans. The average attendance for the Charge was 6,191 during the regular season and 6,892 for the playoffs.

Scheer told councillors the PWHL and Ottawa Charge are projecting an average of 7,000 fans a game for the 2025-26 season.

“Ticket sales are already up 20 per cent, year over year,” Scheer said.

City Manager Wendy Stephanson issued a memo to council about the capacity issues in the new Event Centre ahead of the committee debate, warning any changes to the current plan would add up to $100 million in costs and delay the project two to three years.

“An increase in seating capacity of 2,000+ seats would result in an estimated increase in footprint of 20-25 per cent,” Stephanson said in the memo. “An increased footprint represents a change in the design and schedule Council approved in 2023. This would terminate the existing project and require a minimum of two to three years to complete.”

Stephanson said it would cost an estimated $80 million to $100 million for architectural design, planning approvals, permitting, escalation, and building code adjustments for the new Event Centre with an additional 2,000 seats, on top of the original estimate of $176.8 million.

The memo warns the city would need to develop a new proposal if council voted to expand the arena capacity, including cancelling the proposed contract with EBC Inc. procuring a new contract with an architect, and re-applying for a new building permit and reengaging with Parks Canada and the National Capital Commission.

“In summary, a delay would result in the cancellation and restart of the overall redevelopment plan, resulting in increased costs given annual construction inflation ranging from three to five per cent as well as increased City debt and debt servicing to offset the increase in costs,” Stephanson said.

Stephanson also shared information from Ottawa Sports and Entertainment President and CEO Mark Goudie on negotiations with the PWHL.

Goudie said OSEG thought it was close to an agreement on a five-year extension for the Charge to play at Lansdowne, adding the lease terms would have seen the PWHL “about $800,000 a year better off through a combination of improved lease terms, new advertising inventory, and premium seating opportunities.” Goudie said, adding Scheer told OSEG that “where we had jointly negotiated to wasn’t enough.”

“Amy indicated that they needed another $700K to $1M in value. I told her that wasn’t something the Partnership could take on; it would mean losing money and effectively subsidizing the PWHL,” Goudie wrote. “When I asked what their five-year outlook in Ottawa looked like, she couldn’t really say beyond saying that they expect that their ideal arena size was 10,000-seats.”

Scheer says the PWHL and the Ottawa Charge “love playing at Lansdowne,” but are open to exploring other options if capacity issues remain.

“It’s in the city, it’s central, our fans like coming there, we’ve built a nice home, we’ve built a nice atmosphere and it’s been our goal to stay at Lansdowne,” Scheer said.

“Now, if that’s not an option at some point, then, of course, we’ll have conversations with the Senators and play games at Canadian Tire Centre maybe and think about LeBreton Flats.”

Scheer says the PWHL raised concerns about capacity previously, and had hoped for a seat at the table to discuss it.

“Every conversation we’ve had, whether it was with OSEG or the mayor, we’ve talked about capacity in every conversation,” Scheer said.

“They never brought us to the table to talk about capacity; whether they ignored us, whether they didn’t care – I don’t know, but we were never given a forum to actually discuss capacity and why it was so important to us.”

Scheer notes only 30 per cent of Ottawa Charge games were on weekends last season, and the club averaged 8,400 fans a game.

“Now the 67’s, 85 per cent of their games were on weekends and they averaged half of that,” Scheer said. “So, despite being relegated to the weekdays, we’ve still widely succeeded. There has to be context to attendance, and if we were prioritized and given the weekend games, not only would we do better for ourselves, we would do better for OSEG because we would put more money in the pockets of OSEG through additional ticket fees, through the bigger share of merchandise, through bigger share of food and concession and parking for them.”

Scheer said a 5,800-seat arena would not be profitable for the PWHL and Charge.

“We’ve run multiple financial analysis and there’s not a way for a 5,500-seat arena, with the expense of a hockey team, to be profitable,” Scheer told councillors.

“Running a hockey team is expensive.”

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said there are “lots of ways” to address the PWHL’s capacity and revenue concerns.

“Realistically, there’s an opportunity for the PWHL and OSEG to sit down and look at other revenue opportunities and see if there’s a way to bridge the cap and find solutions,” Sutcliffe told reporters.

“Let’s not forget there’s another arena in Ottawa, and by the time the new arena at Lansdowne is built we may know a lot more about the future of an Ottawa Senators arena on LeBreton Flats and maybe that’s an option for the Charge to play some or all of their games in the future. There are lots of ways the Charge can stay in Ottawa – playing a combination of their games at Lansdowne and a current or future NHL arena or playing all their games in the future at an NHL arena. It’s a financial question that has been raised now.”

Debate on Lansdowne

The committee kicked off the expected lengthy debate on Lansdowne 2.0 at 9:30 a.m. with a presentation from staff, ahead of public delegations.

“Lansdowne is a place of civic history and pride in our community,” Stephanson said at the start of the marathon session.

“It’s a unique landmark in Ottawa and a place that our community cares deeply about.”

A total of 88 delegations have registered to speak at the committee, including Canadian Football League Commissioner Stewart Johnson, PWHL executive vice-presidents Jayna Hefford and Amy Scheer, Ontario Hockey League Commissioner Bryan Crawford, CEBL president Tyler Mazereeuw, Ottawa Board of Trade president Sueling Ching, Invest Ottawa CEO Sonya Shorey and Ottawa Tourism president and CEO Michael Crockatt.

The plan includes:

• A $176 million new Event Centre to replace the aging Civic Centre, with a capacity of 6,600 fans for hockey games (5,850 seats), and 7,000 for concerts.
• $118.38 million for a new north-side stands at TD Place to replace the aging stands, with 11,200 seats for football, 900 standing room spaces and approximately 25,000 square feet of administrative offices.
• Staff say there will be “improvements to the Urban Park,” including 12,700 square metres of public green space and 6,280 square metres of public plaza space.
• A total of 4,550 square metres of replacement retail space within a two-storey podium design, including a “grand entrance” to the new north-side stands.
• A private development for two residential towers, up to 40 storeys in height, with approximately 770 units with a mix of condominium, apartment rental and hotel units.

The City of Ottawa will also spend $19.2 million for the new underground parking facility for the new condo towers.

Staff recommend approving a contract with EBC Inc. to build the new event centre and north-side stands at TD Place. Toronto-based developer Mirabella Development Corporation has been selected as the preferred bidder for the two residential towers and a retail podium.

Sutcliffe said last week that while the cost of the project is $418.8 million, “the net cost to taxpayers is $130 million,” or $4.3 million a year. According to the staff report, funding for Lansdowne 2.0 will include $2 million a year from the Municipal Accommodation Tax, $700,000 a year from a ticket surcharge on events at TD Place and the new Event Centre, $500,000 from rent paid to the city, $3.6 million in property taxes and $6.2 million a year from the city’s return from the waterfall agreement.

The sale of air rights for the two residential towers raised $25 million more than expected to help cover the cost of the project.

If approved by committee and council, construction on the new event centre will run from 2025 to 2028, the new north-side stands will be conducted from 2028 to 2030 and the residential development will begin after 2031.

Concerns about Lansdowne

Opponents of the Lansdowne 2.0 project are raising several concerns, including the money spent by taxpayers and whether the 67’s and Redblacks will stick around for the duration of the agreement.

Coun. Shawn Menard says the Lansdowne Partnership agreements show the Redblacks and 67’s are only guaranteed to stay at Lansdowne for another seven years.

“The city could see both teams sold or not operating after that year,” Menard said. “This is significant, as all of the financial modelling included the operation of the teams for decades to come.”

Under the partnership agreement between the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, the Redblacks and 67’s must operate until Dec. 31, 2032, unless the CFL and OHL cease to operate.

Scheer told councillors that the PWHL is committed to Ottawa until at least the end of the current collective bargaining agreement in 2031.

“Nobody wants to leave Ottawa, we came here for a specific reason. Certainly, not looking to run out the door,” Scheer said.

“When you talk about terms, I can only sit here and 100 per cent guarantee you until the end of our CBA.”

With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Leah Larocque