Remember when the Sylvia Holden Park kerfuffle started two years ago?

At the time, we were trying to figure out where exactly the park formally was. Or, maybe I was the only one who thought it was the park at the bend of Holmwood Ave. with the ball diamonds. Turns out the park was closer to the corner of Bank St. and the ball diamonds are part of Lansdowne Community Park.

With the redevelopment, the current Sylvia Holden Park will be wiped out. So, staff are now proposing to change the name of Lansdowne Community Park to Sylvia Holden Park.

Got all that?

Here’s the explanation staff use in the latest report on the proposed Lansdowne urban park:

Sylvia Holden Park – Transfer of Park Name
 
The former City of Ottawa honoured Sylvia Holden in 1994 for her many years of community involvement and the promotion of community recreation by naming the park at the southeast corner of Bank Street and Holmwood Avenue after her.   
 
As part of the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park, there will no longer be a public park at the corner of Bank Street and Holmwood Avenue.  While there will be a substantial amount of public space throughout the mixed-use area, staff recommend that the commemoration of Sylvia Holden Park be maintained by transfering it to the nearby community park known as the Lansdowne Community Park.  This transfer will provide an appropriate and tangible alternative honouring Sylvia Holden in a nearby park that serves the same community.  The transfer will also provide a clear distinction in names between the Lansdowne urban park and what is currently know as the Lansdowne community park.

The scuttlebutt is this right now…The Ottawa 67′s will be holding a news conference this week to announce the team will be playing the next two seasons at Scotiabank Place so construction crews can work on the Lansdowne Park redevelopment. You’ll recall, a renovation of the Civic Centre is also in the redevelopment plan. Keep an eye on the Ottawa Sun website for updates.

Reporters, they say, love numbers. Which means, I suppose, people like to read about numbers. If you’re one of those people, this might interest you. The city handed out some background information to the media during today’s Lansdowne presentation and since I don’t see it posted online, I share a brief version with you here. You might wonder how on earth the number of bike spaces will mysteriously quadruple on major event days. A note in the backgrounder says two “bicycle corrals” would be brought in.

	Before	After
Asphalt	26.8 acres	1.8 acres
Park space	6 acres	18.5 acres
Trees	230	880
Event spaces	4	20
Bike parking	32	450 (up to 1,970 for big events)
Sidewalks and paths	35 metres	7.2 kilometres
Bench seating	20 benches	1 kilometre of benches and “seating walls”
Public art	3 pieces	5 pieces (2 new)

Today’s presentation was interesting enough — hey, who doesn’t like snazzy pictures, right? — but I think the real meat of the redevelopment update will be in the committee reports scheduled to be published by the end of the week. For example, Heritage Ottawa past president David Flemming made a good point after the presentation about there being no information about what will happen inside Aberdeen Pavilion. We also saw no information about the renovations to the Civic Centre.

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Follow City Hall reporter Jon Willing on Twitter at @JonathanWilling

I’m a bit surprised the city would consider adding another refrigerated rink to its inventory, again, right next to the Rideau Canal skateway.

The latest iteration of the Lansdowne Park design includes a “skating court,” which in the summer will be a hard surface that can be used for functions and could also have basketball nets. I’m not so sure how this is going to work with the curling sheets that are also planned for the same ice surface. Curling surfaces have pebbles, although I’m not sure if that level of detail was ever in the cards for the sheets.

With two refrigerated rinks so close in proximity, which one will be the most popular? Lansdowne’s rink in the forest or City Hall’s Rink of Dreams?

Council late this morning was officially invited to the unveiling of the new Lansdowne Park designs. In a memo, city manager Kent Kirkpatrick provided council with an overview of what the presentation will cover.

Here is an excerpt from the memo:

The purpose of the briefing will be to inform Council on the work related to the Lansdowne redevelopment that has been undertaken since August of 2011, as approved and directed by Council. Architects and landscape architects will present their completed work on the plans to revitalize Lansdowne.

Presenters will be:
- Jeffrey Staates, Phillips-Farevaag-Smallenberg Principal, speaking about the urban park;
- Julian Smith, Julian Smith and Associates President, speaking about the Horticulture Building;
- Robert Claiborne, Cannon Design Principal Associate, speaking about the stadium; and,
- John Clifford, Perkins Eastman Principal, speaking about the commercial-residential area.

The 90-minute presentation will cover the details, sightlines, building materials, architecture and landscape plans for Lansdowne Park.

Architects and landscape architects working on the three pieces of the Lansdowne project − the urban park, the mixed-use area, and the stadium and Civic Centre – have successfully integrated their work and created a compelling design with strong connections to adjacent neighbourhoods.

Ongoing direction for this work has been provided by the Lansdowne Design Review Panel which was established by Council and chaired by George Dark.

The city will present the latest iteration of the Lansdowne Park design tomorrow morning at City Hall. The city and the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group have been planning a public unveiling for several weeks and they have kept a pretty good lid on tomorrow’s event, which was initially scheduled for last week. Most councillors have even been kept out of the loop.

I asked Mayor Jim Watson this morning if there was any concern about holding such a presentation when a decision still hasn’t been released by the appeal court on the Friends of Lansdowne application. Watson said the city’s lawyers gave the OK.

“We can’t stand still and not continue the work,” Watson said.

Watson said he’s pleased with the new designs he has reviewed.

“I think it has evolved nicely over the past several months,” he said. “I think people are going to come away very impressed with the look and feel of the new Lansdowne.”