The civic tug-of-war between Lansdowne Park and the ByWard Market is a contest for hearts, minds and {dollars} that’s shaping the way forward for two of Ottawa’s prime sights.
Printed Feb 07, 2025 • Final up to date 1 hour in the past • 6 minute learn
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The civic tug-of-war between Lansdowne Park and the ByWard Market is a contest for hearts, minds and {dollars} that’s shaping the way forward for two of Ottawa’s prime sights. Picture by JULIE OLIVER / POSTMEDIA, JEAN LEVAC / POSTMEDIA
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Within the decade since a renovated Lansdowne Park opened to guests in August 2014, the 40-acre venue has steadily drawn guests, distributors and funding {dollars} away from the ByWard Market.
The Metropolis of Ottawa poured $210 million into the primary redevelopment, and later this 12 months, council will resolve whether or not to double-down on Lansdowne with one other $419 million-plus funding to modernize its sports activities amenities.
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The Market, too, has had a redevelopment plan on the desk since January 2021. However the ByWard Market Public Realm Plan accommodates no funding mechanism and depends on federal, provincial and public-private partnerships to finance its $129 million price of enhancements.
For 4 years, they’ve largely gone unfunded.
In December, the Ontario authorities introduced an $11.8 million contribution to the Market makeover plan to pedestrianize William Avenue, renovate ByWard Market Sq. and enhance some primary infrastructure.
It’s all a part of a civic tug-of-war between Lansdowne Park and the ByWard Market – a contest for hearts, minds and {dollars} that’s shaping the way forward for two of Ottawa’s prime sights.
Proper now, it appears, the ByWard Market is shedding that contest.
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Ottawa architect and author Toon Dreessen, president of Architects DCA Picture by Picture courtesy of Toon Dreessen
Ottawa architect and author Toon Dreessen, president of Architects DCA, says the entire metropolis’s energies and mental capital are being spent on Lansdowne 2.0.
“All of this has all been focused on Lansdowne, and the Market has been completely sidelined,” he contends. “All of our funding, and all of our capacity for dealing with a grand public space, has been focused on Lansdowne.
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“We’re somehow OK with spending half a billion dollars on Lansdowne, but the Market plan that was costed out was a quarter of that.”
OTTAWA — Folks soaked up the occasional bursts of sunshine whereas having fun with the colourful sights and sounds of the ByWard Market, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. Picture by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
As an train, he says, native residents ought to think about what Ottawa would seem like if town spent a few of the Lansdowne 2.0 cash on the ByWard Market, each on its bodily infrastructure and on its homelessness drawback. It’s potential, he says, that “something incredible” might consequence.
“But that’s just not on the radar, and that, I think is really sad,” he says.
Rideau-Vanier Coun. Stéphanie Plante says the “economic case” for investing within the ByWard Market is robust – and is beginning to achieve traction.
Plante stated the Market represents the second largest supply of municipal property taxes within the metropolis – behind solely downtown Ottawa – with greater than 600 companies. Host to nearly 6,000 lodge rooms, it additionally receives the lion’s share of tourism.
The ByWard Market District Authority says there have been 22 million visits to the Market in 2024, up 19 per cent from the earlier 12 months. Lansdowne Park acquired about 4 million guests in 2024.
“We really are an economic backbone for the city,” argues Plante. “We need to be treated like it.”
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ByWard Market and Lansdowne Park have co-existed since 1868 when the Ottawa Agricultural Society acquired a plot of land subsequent to the Rideau Canal, east of Financial institution Avenue, as a fairground.
Lansdowne was then well-removed from town’s inhabitants centre, and posed little menace to the well-established ByWard Market, which served because the business and retail hub of town.
Even after the fairground expanded and performed host to the annual Central Canada Exhibition, it was principally a seasonal venue for navy workout routines, gala’s, concert events, sporting occasions and political conventions.
Lansdowne and the Market performed distinct, complementary roles in civic life.
By the Nineties, Lansdowne Park was in determined form: The Aberdeen Pavillion had been condemned and engineers stated its roof was in peril of collapse. The Horticulture Constructing was additionally being readied for the wrecking ball.
However the buildings had been saved in an Eleventh-hour compromise orchestrated by a then-rookie councillor named Jim Watson.
OTTAWA – Nov 25, 2023 — A number of skaters benefit from freshly cleaned ice at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa Saturday. TONY CALDWELL, Postmedia. Picture by Tony Caldwell /Postmedia
It didn’t cease Lansdowne Park’s decline. The soccer staff that succeeded the Tough Riders, the Ottawa Renegades, left in 2006. In October 2007, engineers discovered cracks within the south facet stands, which had been subsequently demolished. The Tremendous Ex left in 2010.
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All of it led to a protracted redevelopment debate that in the end led to the present version of Lansdowne Park, which options bars, eating places, festivals, sports activities, vacation spot buying (Sporting Life) and meals shops (Complete Meals Market), music and meals festivals, a farmers’ market and a Christmas Market.
The brand new Lansdowne has emerged as extra of a direct competitor to the ByWard Market.
In 2015, the seasonal farmer’s market at Lansdowne Park turned a year-round attraction. For the following decade, produce distributors steadily left the ByWard Marketplace for Lansdowne and for different seasonal markets in Barrhaven, Westboro, Orleans and Ottawa East.
The Ottawa Christmas Market at Lansdowne Park has grown exponentially yearly since its launch in 2019. This 12 months, the Christmas Market lasted seven weeks – a two-week extension of its earlier schedule – and attracted 423,000 guests.
Attendance was up by greater than 160,000, and the crowds often brought on site visitors jams on Financial institution Avenue.
The ByWard Market fought again with a small, synthetic skating rink on William Avenue that usually sat empty.
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The artificial ice rink on William Avenue within the ByWard Market has not attracted many skaters. Picture by Jean Levac /POSTMEDIA
Lansdowne has additionally loved a bump from the Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League, which constantly brings greater than 6,000 followers to its house video games at TD Place Enviornment.
Along with extra parking choices, Lansdowne additionally has the benefit of enormous areas – the Aberdeen Pavillion, the Horticulture Constructing, Aberdeen Plaza, the Nice Garden – that can be utilized to host quite a lot of programming.
ByWard Market’s public realm plan envisions new, programmable public areas that may permit it to higher compete with Lansdowne. It requires the Clarence Avenue parkade to be redeveloped as a “destination” constructing and for the creation of a “flexible” York Avenue plaza, between Sussex Drive and the ByWard Market Constructing. The plaza would host particular occasions typically and vehicles at different instances.
The plan additionally calls for brand new gateways into the ByWard Market, the reinvention of ByWard Market Sq. and a pedestrian-only William Avenue, from Rideau Avenue to Clarence Avenue.
However the challenge wants cash, and to date a minimum of, it has taken a backseat to the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park.
Artist’s rendering of Lansdowne 2.0. Picture by Metropolis of Ottawa
What’s extra, the redevelopment of LeBreton Flats, and the development of a brand new house for the Ottawa Senators, would possibly quickly knock the ByWard Market additional down town’s precedence checklist.
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“I don’t think it’s a frustration,” says Zachary Dayler, government director of the ByWard Market District Authority (BMDA). “I think it’s a challenge that we need to look at and say, ‘OK, how do we put the prominence that is applied to LeBreton, that’s applied to Lansdowne, and also apply it to ByWard.”
Dayler stated the province’s $11.8 million funding within the ByWard is “a strong signal that future and further investments will come.”
Zach Dayler, government director of the ByWard Market District Authority Picture by ERROL MCGIHON /Postmedia
Former Rideau-Vanier ward councillor Mathieu Fleury shepherded the Market’s public realm plan by means of metropolis council. He contends town funds is sufficiently big to accommodate the redevelopment of the ByWard Market alongside different initiatives, reminiscent of Lansdowne and LeBreton Flats.
He doesn’t wish to see one neighbourhood pitted in opposition to one other.
“We have got to think about it comprehensively,” Fleury argues, “and if you think of a city like a body, the ByWard Market is its heart.”
Stéphanie Plante notes that Lansdowne is a completely city-owned property, which simplifies decision-making about its redevelopment. About 20 per cent of properties contained in the ByWard Market are owned by the Nationwide Capital Fee.
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It’s additionally house to about 10 per cent of town’s heritage buildings, the U.S. Embassy, a number of federal authorities buildings, an inter-provincial truck route, many of the metropolis’s homeless shelters, and greater than its share of opioid-related social chaos.
Town has invested within the Market’s security and safety. The Ottawa Police Service opened a Neighbourhood Operations Centre within the Rideau Centre in 2024 and launched an intensified policing technique for Rideau Avenue and the ByWard Market.
All of it means, Plante says, that the ByWard Market is each sophisticated and iconic, and that progress calls for partnerships. Plante not too long ago met with federal officers to pitch a brand new funding within the Market, and she or he urged cash is on the desk.
“I’m hoping there can be an announcement soon,” she says.
Plante additionally believes there’s alternative for the ByWard Market as Lansdowne 2.0 unfolds. The huge challenge will flip Lansdowne right into a development website as soon as once more, which guarantees to disrupt enterprise and occasions on the website for years to return.
The final time Lansdowne was a development website, the farmers’ market moved to Brewer Park in Ottawa South.
This time, Plante intends to ask them to return to the ByWard Market.
“I would love to bring all of those farmers to the ByWard while they’re waiting to go back – and then keep them here.”
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