Daly's comments on Senators ownership bids and arena plans set up fascinating spring

OTTAWA – There are certain irrefutable facts about the Ottawa Senators where their ownership and arena plans are concerned.

One, the team is for sale and bids are about to get real as the NHL and Galatioto Sports Partners entertain multiple offers over the next week or two.

Two, the Senators will eventually be moving to a new, more central arena.

Beyond that, we don’t know much, until the new owners are in place and plans get laid out for all eyes to see.

At the moment, we cling to cryptic comments and background work that has gone into the LeBreton Flats site for more than a year now.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has made it clear that a new, central arena should be part of any new ownership plan for the Senators. During his All-Star Game availability earlier this month, Bettman said that as many as 15 parties have shown interest in buying the Senators, a number that will be whittled down very soon.

“The opportunity to bring the team downtown to LeBreton Flats makes this an even more exciting opportunity to own a team in the nation’s capital,” Bettman said.

Amen to that.

And so it was interesting to hear Bettman’s deputy commissioner Bill Daly tell John Shannon and Bob McCown on the Bob McCown Podcast late last week that there is nothing cast in stone at LeBreton.

“There may be bids that don’t have LeBreton Flats as part of their future projection for this franchise,” Daly said, matter-of-factly. “It depends on what they have planned. It’s certainly a relevant part of the mix, but I don’t think it’s an essential element.”

That must have been an interesting nugget to hear for National Capital Commission chair Marc Seaman and CEO Tobi Nussbaum.

Last June, the NCC reached an agreement with the Senators to build a major event centre (read: arena complex) on about seven acres of prime LeBreton Flats property just west of Parliament Hill. The agreement called for the two sides to reach a lease agreement by the fall of 2023, by which time new owners would be in place and sign off on the deal.

This is where it gets interesting. Numerous developers have looked at that site and wanted more – more land, that is, to make the venture broader than a simple arena and one or two other developments.

Perhaps the NCC could give a little on that front. However, the NCC is not in business to serve hockey and realty desires. It has a lot of other interests to bear on the broader parcel of land here (about 72 acres), which sits on traditional Algonquin Territory. Affordable housing, commerce, green space and transit links are all part of the plan, which took a major detour when a 2016 agreement among the NCC, the Senators and Trinity Developments (known as RendezVous LeBreton) fell apart.

With wandering eyes and dollar-sign vision, some developers have looked at other sites around Ottawa that may be larger and less restrictive. Some of these sites were thought of years ago as a potential landing spot for an arena.

An Ottawa Citizen reporter did a piece after the RendezVous deal collapsed, searching for land that could accommodate the Senators. Most of these sites, he noted, would require land rezoning that could complicate a deal getting done.

And while the suggested sites are more central than the current Canadian Tire Centre facility in Kanata, they are not LeBreton. They are not as central as LeBreton, not close to being the last jewel of real estate still open to development just a kilometre away from the heart of the nation’s capital. All of that with an eager and willing partner in the NCC.

The NCC and Senators officials Anthony LeBlanc and Erin Crowe have been working together for months, studying other arena complexes that have been built recently, with an eye toward creating something special at LeBreton.

Hard to imagine this all gets thrown out the window now, but as we know, stranger things have happened on the road to developing LeBreton Flats.

On the same podcast, Daly said having Canadian actor and sports enthusiast Ryan Reynolds as part of the ownership group is not a “be-all, end-all.”

That remark seemed to tie in with a report by Postmedia linking Reynolds to a particular corporate realty group from the Toronto area (Remington), which would end the idea of Reynolds waiting to see who wins the bid so he could form an alliance after the fact.

Daly confirmed that a potential winning bid “won’t rise or fall on whether he’s part of it,” while adding that Reynolds would be a “major asset” to any owners in Ottawa because of his high profile.

How much will the owners pay for the Senators? Daly estimated the final number will be in excess of $800 million (U.S.), and that $1 billion is a “real possibility.”

Who ultimately pays for the arena? Will there be municipal, provincial and/or federal money involved? Does LeBreton win the day?

As the Senators get more competitive on the ice, their off-ice developments will be equally fascinating this spring and summer.