By Dara Hakimzadeh
Partners in a planned $100 million expansion of the Ottawa Congress Centre and Rideau Centre say a re-design is long overdue.
“The Congress Centre is really undersized at the present time although Ottawa is the fourth largest urban municipality in this country. We’re way down the line,” says Bob Hasler, Rideau Centre general manager.
Plans by the Viking Rideau Corporation, with the federal and provincial governments, the City of Ottawa, the Congress Centre and the Rideau Centre include tripling the size of the Congress Centre and extending it along the east-side of the Rideau Centre along Nicholas Street. It would also stretch from Rideau Street to the Mackenzie King Bridge.
“We’re in the same league as Moncton and Saskatoon. There is really a serious need for increased facilities,” Hasler says.
Currently the expansion has no architectural firm working on the design because the Congress Centre is still meeting with the province to secure the funding.
There have also been talks between the partners about including another hotel in the development.
“There have been expressions of interests from three different hoteliers,” says Hasler. Starwood Hotels and Resorts, the Weston hotel’s management company, is one of them. Hasler doesn’t want to name, the others.
Strong support for the project came from a Price Waterhouse Coopers study, says Hasler.
The study noted that these expansions would create close to “4,000 new full-time jobs in the community and contribute to about $40 to $50 million in taxes each year, and would greatly enhance tourism,” he says.
Former mayor Marion Dewar says at first she was opposed to an expansion.
“I didn’t think (it was a good idea) at first when they started talking about it until I looked at their stats. We can bring in more conventions and bring people downtown. I think it’s going to be a revenue generator,” says Dewar.
David Hamilton, president of the Ottawa Congress Centre says investing in the centre makes mathematical sense.
“It’s a known fact that conventioneers spend approximately three times as much money as holiday-makers and if we increase the conventions then the number of people coming to the city will spend more money.
Plans to enlarge the mall’s retail space by 150,000 square feet have been in the works for a decade
The project is scheduled to be finished by 2006.