1. Downtown took you 30 min - well add another 30 minutes east or north and you will find 2/3rds of where the rest of the city lives. 2. You cannot walk to the stadium from a restaurant other than the two at the arena and maybe the Harvey's at Home Depot. 3. Thats the exact point - a central stadium creates reasonable commutes for more people. A stadium in Kanata creates a lengthy commute for most of the population. There maybe 300k within 20min of Scotiabank, but there are nearly one million within 20-30 minutes of a downtown facility.
Remember this.....if you build it they will come! Eugene Melnyk’s company, Senators Sports and Entertainment, wants to build on to its existing recreation hub — Scotiabank Place and the Sensplex nearby — by seeing the city build a stadium that would house a Major League Soccer franchise, creating an “entertainment village” that would attract something in the order of four million visits a year. In tandem with that project, the Senators organization plans to build somewhere between 900,000 square feet and 1.5-million square feet of office space, between 300,000 square feet and 500,000 square feet of retail and entertainment building, and up to 450 residential units. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Business/Melnyk+plans+entertainment+village/1293588/story.html
Ottawa population is not just the center of the city.The population includes Nepean Kanata Stitsville Orleans Cumberland Manotick There are a few others. I live in bells corners which is about 10 minutes from the scotia bank place.Its 30 minutes to downtown.Again i think downtown is the best but i am just getting sick of people that think kanata etc is not part of ottawa.
Its pretty basic - the market will be limited by geographic distance - optimal place is in the middle of the population base. No one is saying Kanata is not part of Ottawa, it just happens to be to the extreme west. Its gravity is limited and half the city's population has to travel an extreme distance to get to Scotiabank Place. We are one city thats why the stadium needs to go to the middle
I would not call it extream distance.Yes its not great the sbp should be downtown but it is where it is.should the soccer stadium be downtown yes this is because i really feel kanata could not handle that much traffic.Aslo yes on other boards i have seen people say things such as kanata is not ottawa and so on.I have even been in debate where some thing people in kanata etc don't pay taxs to ottawa but yes all the services.This is not all all as well pay taxs to ottawa.Other comments i have seen some think all kanata is just farmers and yuppies and again that really is not true.Another comment i did see was someone said its 1 plus for anyone but those in kanata.Again this is not true as there is stittsville/nepean/carp/west ottawa etc.All very close to kanata.The list goes on with comments that really are not true some are to a point but some are just not at all.Ortawa i don't mean to sound like i am bashing your idea i am not in face i agree with them.
The new stadium needs to go where it makes most sense, and location is only one factor. If it is to support MLS, then there is no point discussing any location other than Kanata, because that is the only place that MLS is on the cards. It is important that people who want MLS in Ottawa not confuse the issue by talking about Lansdowne being the best location, even though they want soccer in Ottawa. We need to be united (Ottawa United?) and talk consistently about the Melnyk proposal being the better option than Lansdowne Live, for all the many reasons in its favour.
My original post was if Lansdowne gets selected as the stadium built, do people think a different tier of soccer could be supported in ottawa
I know, but I don't want Hunt supporters claiming that there si support for soccer and CFL at a new Lansdowne, because that potentially weakens the MLS bid. Let's all keep the focus on MLS.
Larry O’Brien “City council decided not to invest into Frank Clair Stadium and the Civic Centre for over two decades and it cannot be ignored any longer,” O’Brien said in an e-mail. “My priority is to redevelop Lansdowne Park and transform it into the jewel it should be for the nation’s capital.” http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Lansdowne+will+cost+extra+million+over+years/1458073/story.html
And when you thinks couldn't get stranger. http://www.ottawasun.com/News/OttawaAndRegion/2009/04/15/9116731-sun.html
Sounds like a good back-up plan to get soccer in Ottawa, but I prefer the Citizen reports: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Business/Lansdowne+doesn+need+stadium+mayor+says/1498583/story.html http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Sports/Denley+plan+combines+soccer+football/1497137/story.html I like the idea of Melnyk taking over the conditional CFL franchise. It's going to be an interesting week...
I think it definitely makes sense for the two to share a field, from a business perspective. I am not too surprised that the Hunt group would give up the franchise if they get the rights to develop Bank street - that is really all they were after. Maybe Greenberg is revelling in self satisfaction after having the OMB stick it to the city over Manotick? In any event, if we have three major sports teams out in Kanata, along with 10,000 new homes, it would spur on the extension of any rapid tranist - even an aextension of the Transitway would be pretty good.
Clustering sports in Kanata does make sense from a transit development perspective. I would still prefer a true-SSS, with the seats crowded round the pitch on all four sides, but even I couldn't argue against designing for a longer endzone and putting the CFL team there. It's a pretty small compromise, and I might even go to some of the CFL games.