Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group and City of Ottawa Enter into Partnership to Redevelop Lansdowne Park

Following approval by City Council, Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) and the City of Ottawa entered into a historic partnership to redevelop Lansdowne Park in Ottawa. The redeveloped Lansdowne will include a renovated Frank Clair stadium and Civic Centre arena as well as an urban village featuring retail, office and residential components and a park.

The stadium will be the home field for a new Canadian Football League team and the arena will be the home ice for the Ottawa 67's hockey team. In addition to the creation of the partnership and project structure, transactions completed included leases of the stadium and retail components to partnership entities, the lease of the office component air rights to a third party and the sale of the residential air rights to a third party.

The City of Ottawa was represented by in-house counsel Carey Thomson and by Borden Ladner Gervais LLP by a team led by Morton Gross and including Rocco D'Angelo, Kasim Salim, Sybil Johnson-Abbott, Xue Yan, Jamison Young and Katherine Levitt.

OSEG was represented by Soloway Wright LLP with a team led by Beth Gearing (corporate/commercial) including Alan Cohen (municipal); Terilynn Anderson (commercial leasing and real estate); January Cohen (municipal); Stephane Leduc (corporate/commercial) and Charlie Honeywell (real estate).

OSEG was also represented on certain matters, including the acquisition of the Ottawa 67's, dealings with the Canadian Football League and the Ontario Hockey League and other matters relating to the sports teams, by Fogler, Rubinoff LLP with a corporate/commercial/tax team led by Bill Berger and which included Peter Guselle, Pinar Ozyetis, Matt Norris and Michael Orfus and a real estate/leasing team led by Jeffrey Goldenberg which included Michael Wolfish and Steven Cygelfarb.

OSEG's partners were separately represented as to various matters by Fred Seller of Brazeau Seller LLP; Don Brazeau and Brent Timmons of Brazeau Seller; Robert Kinghan of Perley-Robertson, Hill and McDougall LLP/s.r.l. and by Bill Berger and Matt Norris of Fogler, Rubinoff.

The Canadian Football League was represented by Adam Armstrong of Torys LLP.

Jeff Hunt and the Ottawa 67's were represented by Shane McLean of LaBarge Weinstein LLP with a team including Estelle Duez, Michael Sami and Matthew Donnelly.