News Article: Lebreton...UPDATE - Agreement made with NCC.

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Well...if speeding tickets around Ottawa were $5k a pop, the city would be able to build an arena in Lebreton, and pay off the LRT in a hurry.

...just sayin'

 

[Stylizer1]

Well...if speeding tickets around Ottawa were $5k a pop, the city would be able to build an arena in Lebreton, and pay off the LRT in a hurry.

...just sayin'

Or no one would speed.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Or no one would speed.

Either way it's a win.

But it will be interesting to see how the city is going to help Andy with this project. I mean, after certain other teams in this country were handed a taxpayer bag, you have to figure the Sens are going to get a bit of help somewhere in the process.

And I don't think getting a discount equal to cleaning the contamination is enough. That land has been like that for well over half a century with little cleanup, so it seems really odd that a new owner/leaseholder should get stuck with any of that nonsense. When buying a house, you don't say, "this house would be worth a million if you put 75k in renovations to it, so the selling price is 925k"...no, the fixer-upper would be selling at 700-800k, and the person putting in the effort to do the reno reaps the benefits of the extra equity generated by the cleanup/glowup.

 

[Stylizer1]

As of 2012: $71 million

Cost of cleaning up contaminated soil at Ottawa's LeBreton Flats could top $71 million, National Capital Commission says

The bill for cleaning contaminated soil at LeBreton Flats has hit $71 million and the National Capital Commission has abandoned plans to unload a massive chunk of t…

ottawasun.com

As of 2017: $170 million

City doesn't want to cover LeBreton Flats cleanup costs, report reveals

LeBreton Flats needs to be a showpiece neighbourhood once it's rebuilt, the city says, as long as it costs the city government as little as possible.

ottawacitizen.com

With numbers like this $250,000,000 sounds about right.

Sens could be on the hook for 150-170ish?

Seems like where the proposed site will be is the most contaminated. It probably gets deducted from the purchase of land.

 

[Micklebot]

As of 2012: $71 million

Cost of cleaning up contaminated soil at Ottawa's LeBreton Flats could top $71 million, National Capital Commission says

The bill for cleaning contaminated soil at LeBreton Flats has hit $71 million and the National Capital Commission has abandoned plans to unload a massive chunk of t…

ottawasun.com

As of 2017: $170 million

City doesn't want to cover LeBreton Flats cleanup costs, report reveals

LeBreton Flats needs to be a showpiece neighbourhood once it's rebuilt, the city says, as long as it costs the city government as little as possible.

ottawacitizen.com

With numbers like this $250,000,000 sounds about right.

Sens could be on the hook for 150-170ish?

View attachment 910522

Seems like where the proposed site will be is the most contaminated. It probably gets deducted from the purchase of land.

170 was for a parcel of land significantly bigger that the new deal, the original deal was for 50 acres, the new deal is 10.

Beyond that, the cost of cleanup will be taken into account when determining market value of the land, so if it costs 100 mil or whatever for cleanup, it likely means a significant discount on the market value of the land

 

[Golden_Jet]

Sens could be on the hook for 150-170ish?

nothing the NCC has said, suggests that at all.

 

[Stylizer1]

nothing the NCC has said, suggests that at all.

Im going by those news articles spaced 5 years apart, how much they went up in price, and what those numbers could look like 7-8 years past that and considering inflation.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Im going by those news articles spaced 5 years apart, how much they went up in price, and what those numbers could look like 7-8 years past that and considering inflation.

I’m going by the press conference last week., that the Senators won’t be on the hook for cleanup.

 

[Stylizer1]

I’m going by the press conference last week., that the Senators won’t be on the hook for cleanup.

and that was probably negotiated into the price.

 

[Golden_Jet]

and that was probably negotiated into the price.

That’s exactly what they said,
Price of land would depend on who does the cleanup.
If NCC does cleanup, purchase of the land will reflect that. If Sens do the cleanup, price will reflect that.
Sens aren’t paying for land remediation.

 

[mysens]

That’s exactly what they said,
Price of land would depend on who does the cleanup.
If NCC does cleanup, purchase of the land will reflect that. If Sens do the cleanup, price will reflect that.
Sens aren’t paying for land remediation.

I beg to disagree. Some of the partners are in construction and have a lot of contacts to do this remediation. They will no doubt have one of their many people in their Rolodex to come out and price it….much higher than the other guy and use that number as their new leverage. This is the way the big boys play.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I beg to disagree. Some of the partners are in construction and have a lot of contacts to do this remediation. They will no doubt have one of their many people in their Rolodex to come out and price it….much higher than the other guy and use that number as their new leverage. This is the way the big boys play.

Beg all you want.

 

[PlayersLtd]

As of 2012: $71 million

Cost of cleaning up contaminated soil at Ottawa's LeBreton Flats could top $71 million, National Capital Commission says

The bill for cleaning contaminated soil at LeBreton Flats has hit $71 million and the National Capital Commission has abandoned plans to unload a massive chunk of t…

ottawasun.com

As of 2017: $170 million

City doesn't want to cover LeBreton Flats cleanup costs, report reveals

LeBreton Flats needs to be a showpiece neighbourhood once it's rebuilt, the city says, as long as it costs the city government as little as possible.

ottawacitizen.com

With numbers like this $250,000,000 sounds about right.

Sens could be on the hook for 150-170ish?

View attachment 910522

Seems like where the proposed site will be is the most contaminated. It probably gets deducted from the purchase of land.

That cost would be based on doing it from scratch. In the SENS case they would be digging down anyways, likely well below the depths of contamination. The additional cost is therefore restricted to the extra cost in disposal (by whatever method) and the hauling to where said disposal would occur, assuming it's further away than other dump sites in town. That turns it into a fraction of those estimates.

Also, not sure how you are interpreting the arena site as being most contaminated. That area is light orange and could be as little as a 0- 1m profile of contaminated soil. Historic use of the site was a brewery and railyard. The bigger polluters were futher toward the centre of Lebreton with the exception of a paint factory that was near Pimisi.

 

[Stylizer1]

That cost would be based on doing it from scratch. In the SENS case they would be digging down anyways, likely well below the depths of contamination. The additional cost is therefore restricted to the extra cost in disposal (by whatever method) and the hauling to where said disposal would occur, assuming it's further away than other dump sites in town. That turns it into a fraction of those estimates.

Also, not sure how you are interpreting the arena site as being most contaminated. That area is light orange and could be as little as a 0- 1m profile of contaminated soil. Historic use of the site was a brewery and railyard. The bigger polluters were futher toward the centre of Lebreton with the exception of a paint factory that was near Pimisi.

The area east is primarily bedrock now so I don't see the major cost in remediation. I thought the Arena was always proposed to be closer to the Bayview station where the contaminated soil was the issue. They would have to remove it anyway but there is still a significant cost to do so. 16 meters is the height of a 4 story building.

 

[PlayersLtd]

The area east is primarily bedrock now so I don't see the major cost in remediation. I thought the Arena was always proposed to be closer to the Bayview station where the contaminated soil was the issue. They would have to remove it anyway but there is still a significant cost to do so. 16 meters is the height of a 4 story building.

There is significant cost to do so but this is factored into any development site. They know it costs big money to dig a big hole. Let's unpack it a bit...

Your big costs in soil handling (contaminated or not) are your excavators and your trucking.

The excavators are a sunk cost and won't fluctuate whether the fill is contaminated or not.

The trucking cost will only fluctuate if the contaminated fill disposal site is farther than a clean fill disposal site, the added time is your added cost. But in Ottawa, assuming they are going to Trail Landfill, this is only 25 minutes from Lebreton and therefore not much further than most clean fill sites available.

Let's do some quick math to take a run at trucking costs based on 1.5 million cubic metres (random volume based on 700' long x 700' wide x 50' deep x 1.5 for fill expansion, thats a massive hole and that's a healthy expansion coefficient).

Tri axle dump + tri axle pup (or tri axle end trailer) moves 35 cubic metres per load @ + - $200.00 / hr.
1.5 million / 35 = 43,000 loads
1 load to Trail Landfill, 25 minute drive time, estimated 1.5 hr turnaround
1 load = $300.00 in trucking
43,000 loads = $13,000,000.00

So now let's say they couldn't dump at Trail and they had to go 15 minutes further to dispose of contaminated fill. Their turnaround time goes from 1.5 hrs to 2 hours and the cost of trucking thus becomes $400.00 per load or a total of $17,200,000.00

So in a scenario where travel time is 15 minutes more per direction to your contaminated fill disposal site you are looking at an added cost of $4.2M.

Let's now look at disposal costs. On a big job like this these are always negotiated per load but let's say clean fill is $350.00 per 35 cubic yard load and contaminated fill is double at $700.00. Apply that to our 43,000 loads and the added cost to dispose contaminated fill vs. non is $15,000,000.00.

So the total added cost to decontaminate a massive hole vs digging out clean fill is about $20M by that napkin math. There are costs on top of that of course but your materials handling is the overwhelming majority.


disclaimer- I'm not an expert in the field but I do have experience with excavating and hauling.

 

[Stylizer1]

There is significant cost to do so but this is factored into any development site. They know it costs big money to dig a big hole. Let's unpack it a bit...

Your big costs in soil handling (contaminated or not) are your excavators and your trucking.

The excavators are a sunk cost and won't fluctuate whether the fill is contaminated or not.

The trucking cost will only fluctuate if the contaminated fill disposal site is farther than a clean fill disposal site, the added time is your added cost. But in Ottawa, assuming they are going to Trail Landfill, this is only 25 minutes from Lebreton and therefore not much further than most clean fill sites available.

Let's do some quick math to take a run at trucking costs based on 1.5 million cubic metres (random volume based on 700' long x 700' wide x 50' deep x 1.5 for fill expansion, thats a massive hole and that's a healthy expansion coefficient).

Tri axle dump + tri axle pup (or tri axle end trailer) moves 35 cubic metres per load @ + - $200.00 / hr.
1.5 million / 35 = 43,000 loads
1 load to Trail Landfill, 25 minute drive time, estimated 1.5 hr turnaround
1 load = $300.00 in trucking
43,000 loads = $13,000,000.00

So now let's say they couldn't dump at Trail and they had to go 15 minutes further to dispose of contaminated fill. Their turnaround time goes from 1.5 hrs to 2 hours and the cost of trucking thus becomes $400.00 per load or a total of $17,200,000.00

So in a scenario where travel time is 15 minutes more per direction to your contaminated fill disposal site you are looking at an added cost of $4.2M.

Let's now look at disposal costs. On a big job like this these are always negotiated per load but let's say clean fill is $350.00 per 35 cubic yard load and contaminated fill is double at $700.00. Apply that to our 43,000 loads and the added cost to dispose contaminated fill vs. non is $15,000,000.00.

So the total added cost to decontaminate a massive hole vs digging out clean fill is about $20M by that napkin math. There are costs on top of that of course but your materials handling is the overwhelming majority.


disclaimer- I'm not an expert in the field but I do have experience with excavating and hauling.

Where would the newspaper get those numbers from then?

Also, in a best case scenario this may be the case but when ever does anything come in on budget? Your equations seem sound minus workers dragging the feet, blanding turtles, and Gaetan's 4 smoke breaks an hour.

 

[mysens]

There is significant cost to do so but this is factored into any development site. They know it costs big money to dig a big hole. Let's unpack it a bit...

Your big costs in soil handling (contaminated or not) are your excavators and your trucking.

The excavators are a sunk cost and won't fluctuate whether the fill is contaminated or not.

The trucking cost will only fluctuate if the contaminated fill disposal site is farther than a clean fill disposal site, the added time is your added cost. But in Ottawa, assuming they are going to Trail Landfill, this is only 25 minutes from Lebreton and therefore not much further than most clean fill sites available.

Let's do some quick math to take a run at trucking costs based on 1.5 million cubic metres (random volume based on 700' long x 700' wide x 50' deep x 1.5 for fill expansion, thats a massive hole and that's a healthy expansion coefficient).

Tri axle dump + tri axle pup (or tri axle end trailer) moves 35 cubic metres per load @ + - $200.00 / hr.
1.5 million / 35 = 43,000 loads
1 load to Trail Landfill, 25 minute drive time, estimated 1.5 hr turnaround
1 load = $300.00 in trucking
43,000 loads = $13,000,000.00

So now let's say they couldn't dump at Trail and they had to go 15 minutes further to dispose of contaminated fill. Their turnaround time goes from 1.5 hrs to 2 hours and the cost of trucking thus becomes $400.00 per load or a total of $17,200,000.00

So in a scenario where travel time is 15 minutes more per direction to your contaminated fill disposal site you are looking at an added cost of $4.2M.

Let's now look at disposal costs. On a big job like this these are always negotiated per load but let's say clean fill is $350.00 per 35 cubic yard load and contaminated fill is double at $700.00. Apply that to our 43,000 loads and the added cost to dispose contaminated fill vs. non is $15,000,000.00.

So the total added cost to decontaminate a massive hole vs digging out clean fill is about $20M by that napkin math. There are costs on top of that of course but your materials handling is the overwhelming majority.


disclaimer- I'm not an expert in the field but I do have experience with excavating and hauling.

Finally, someone who understands the scope. Then there are the on-site engineers who are continually pulling samples from the ground to test until they eventually hit the clean dry spots. The MOE is on site as well which is another biggy. The big problem with soil remediation is that you are chasing this contamination until you hit clean earth. There is mention of bedrock, the problem is that many times there is a water table is under or close by bedrock. That water table can bring contaminates to areas far far away from the actual building hole. Like I said, this land purchase and soil remediation will be a wash and the Sens will get this land for a dollar or something rather insignificant

 

[Micklebot]

There is significant cost to do so but this is factored into any development site. They know it costs big money to dig a big hole. Let's unpack it a bit...

Your big costs in soil handling (contaminated or not) are your excavators and your trucking.

The excavators are a sunk cost and won't fluctuate whether the fill is contaminated or not.

The trucking cost will only fluctuate if the contaminated fill disposal site is farther than a clean fill disposal site, the added time is your added cost. But in Ottawa, assuming they are going to Trail Landfill, this is only 25 minutes from Lebreton and therefore not much further than most clean fill sites available.

Let's do some quick math to take a run at trucking costs based on 1.5 million cubic metres (random volume based on 700' long x 700' wide x 50' deep x 1.5 for fill expansion, thats a massive hole and that's a healthy expansion coefficient).

Tri axle dump + tri axle pup (or tri axle end trailer) moves 35 cubic metres per load @ + - $200.00 / hr.
1.5 million / 35 = 43,000 loads
1 load to Trail Landfill, 25 minute drive time, estimated 1.5 hr turnaround
1 load = $300.00 in trucking
43,000 loads = $13,000,000.00

So now let's say they couldn't dump at Trail and they had to go 15 minutes further to dispose of contaminated fill. Their turnaround time goes from 1.5 hrs to 2 hours and the cost of trucking thus becomes $400.00 per load or a total of $17,200,000.00

So in a scenario where travel time is 15 minutes more per direction to your contaminated fill disposal site you are looking at an added cost of $4.2M.

Let's now look at disposal costs. On a big job like this these are always negotiated per load but let's say clean fill is $350.00 per 35 cubic yard load and contaminated fill is double at $700.00. Apply that to our 43,000 loads and the added cost to dispose contaminated fill vs. non is $15,000,000.00.

So the total added cost to decontaminate a massive hole vs digging out clean fill is about $20M by that napkin math. There are costs on top of that of course but your materials handling is the overwhelming majority.


disclaimer- I'm not an expert in the field but I do have experience with excavating and hauling.

Very good point, but I believe the issue isn't the difference in cost between dealing with contaminated soil vs non contaminated, it's the need to remediate soil in areas that would otherwise be untouched.

So maybe you have to dig deeper than you otherwise would have, or dig in places you wouldn't have otherwise bothered.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Where would the newspaper get those numbers from then?

Also, in a best case scenario this may be the case but when ever does anything come in on budget? Your equations seem sound minus workers dragging the feet, blanding turtles, and Gaetan's 4 smoke breaks an hour.

Those numbers were for the whole site, not the 10 acre portion of the whole site.

 

[Micklebot]

Those numbers were for the whole site, not the 10 acre portion of the whole site.

Already pointed this out (twice) but hey, 50 acres isn't that much bigger than 10...

Also, the point being made was a portion of the costs for remediation would be spent on normal digging required for a project of this scope, so while remediation may cost 70 mil or 170 mil or whatever, you were already on the hook fora portion of that anyways

 

[PlayersLtd]

Where would the newspaper get those numbers from then?

Also, in a best case scenario this may be the case but when ever does anything come in on budget? Your equations seem sound minus workers dragging the feet, blanding turtles, and Gaetan's 4 smoke breaks an hour.

As others have pointed out the area they were referring to was more than just the 10 acres arena site.

Also, Gaetan is hacking darts in the cab of the machine and on a site like this the machines (and trucks) do not stop moving. Nobody is digging by hand and leaning on their shovels.

Claridge knows what they are doing and what I laid out was not best case scenario, it had some big contingencies.

 

[PlayersLtd]

Very good point, but I believe the issue isn't the difference in cost between dealing with contaminated soil vs non contaminated, it's the need to remediate soil in areas that would otherwise be untouched.

So maybe you have to dig deeper than you otherwise would have, or dig in places you wouldn't have otherwise bothered.

Fair. So that settles the parking debate. It will all be underground since we have a hole anyway.

But in all seriousness it is not a guarantee that the Sens are liable for clean up. The NCC didn't go after the original polluters (or at least weren't successful) and there could be a legal case to be made that decontamination was on the most recent land owner, especially considering the historical precedent of the Federal Government incurring costs on the clean up of it's sites.

Anyway, it will all come out in the wash so to speak. If the NCC plays hardball to an unreasonable point the Sens walk and it will all be tied to the land transaction etc...

My opinion as I have laid out in other posts is that the Sens have a huge amount of leverage and they will use that to get their stadium for a number that is reasonable to them, the NCC will foot the bill on everything else as they build a world class model of sustainability that is teeming with revenue potential.

It's going to be a savvy win for the ownership group and it's going to be the world's most awe inspiring arena and surrounding space. But it's going to take time and until shovels are in the ground there is still the very real possibility that the NCC screws it all up.

 

[Micklebot]

Fair. So that settles the parking debate. It will all be underground since we have a hole anyway.

But in all seriousness it is not a guarantee that the Sens are liable for clean up. The NCC didn't go after the original polluters (or at least weren't successful) and there could be a legal case to be made that decontamination was on the most recent land owner, especially considering the historical precedent of the Federal Government incurring costs on the clean up of it's sites.

Anyway, it will all come out in the wash so to speak. If the NCC plays hardball to an unreasonable point the Sens walk and it will all be tied to the land transaction etc...

My opinion as I have laid out in other posts is that the Sens have a huge amount of leverage and they will use that to get their stadium for a number that is reasonable to them, the NCC will foot the bill on everything else as they build a world class model of sustainability that is teeming with revenue potential.

It's going to be a savvy win for the ownership group and it's going to be the world's most awe inspiring arena and surrounding space. But it's going to take time and until shovels are in the ground there is still the very real possibility that the NCC screws it all up.

The cost to remediate the soil will just impact what fair market value for the land is, if the sens are responsible for it, the price for the land will be substantially reduced (potentially more than the actual cost of remediation due to the associated risk with an unknown cost). If the NCC handles it, the market value of the land will reflect that.

 

[PlayersLtd]

The cost to remediate the soil will just impact what fair market value for the land is, if the sens are responsible for it, the price for the land will be substantially reduced (potentially more than the actual cost of remediation due to the associated risk with an unknown cost). If the NCC handles it, the market value of the land will reflect that.

Exactly. With three notable exceptions.

1 / The NCC will transact at a loss if the remediation exceeds the value of the land.
2 / Because it's part of a master plan the Sens can leverage the impact of a world class stadium on adjoining land value and negotiate down
3 / The Sens can still leverage the potential of other sites especially if it is beginning to look like building at Lebreton is going to take twice as long as a more turn key site.

As is stands Lebreton is far from a home run for the Sens whereas the Sens are a homerun for Lebreton. You have a major 'tenant' with deep pockets ready to kickstart the entire vision for Lebreton with a centrepiece building that will generate volumes of positive global press. The NCC can use that to their advantage or they can set themselves back another 5-10 years with another RFP.

The Sens on the other hand can walk across the street and put shovels in the ground tomorrow if they want.

 

[Stylizer1]

Already pointed this out (twice) but hey, 50 acres isn't that much bigger than 10...

Also, the point being made was a portion of the costs for remediation would be spent on normal digging required for a project of this scope, so while remediation may cost 70 mil or 170 mil or whatever, you were already on the hook fora portion of that anyways

the pic that was posted said there was as much as 1.2 cubic metric contaminated soil. PlayersLtd math was for 1.5 metric tonnes. the newspaper articles numbers seemed way off by his calculation so I asked. No one was talking about 10 acres. (hey)