Invest Ottawa's Amazon bid focuses on LeBreton Flats project — which isn't approved yet
Newly released promo video puts underdeveloped land west of downtown in the spotlight
Ottawa-Gatineau's sales pitch to woo Amazon executives into building a new campus in the nation's capital suggests LeBreton Flats is the preferred site, raising questions about how the land might be used.
In a promotional video published over the weekend, Invest Ottawa, the city's economic development agency, pitched Amazon the undeveloped land just west of downtown Ottawa, without mentioning it by name — but showing artists's renderings of a possible development there.
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This is to grab their attention …- Blair Patacairk, Invest Ottawa
The narrator in the video, which features aerial renderings of the shoreline of the Ottawa River near the city's core, says the site is near "projects poised for development" including a "NHL hockey and entertainment venue" and a new Ottawa Public Library.
Both of those projects have yet to be approved.
"Amazon can step in on the ground floor of this generational city-building undertaking to establish a comparable eight-million-square-foot HQ2 right on the edge of nature," the voice in the video says.
'Putting best foot forward'
Blair Patacairk, Invest Ottawa's managing director of investment and trade, said the National Capital Commission was involved in the process in proposing to put the new office on its land.
"All the stakeholders, including NCC, were part of the discussions that lead to the bid book and the video," he said Sunday.
"They're on board with the video, what we're proposing we could possibly do there. It's eight million square feet, 50,000 people, so a lot more discussion to go on but in principle what we've showcased thus far in terms of that whole area. Gatineau, Ottawa, both sides of the river is in play right now."
CBC News has reached out to the NCC for comment on the proposal.
He said LeBreton Flats boasts a lot of the same features as Amazon's existing headquarters in Seattle, including waterfront properties in an urban setting near mass transit and post-secondary institutions.
"It's putting the best foot forward in terms of all the different sites that we were looking at to showcase that and that's what the video really demonstrates," Patacairk said in an interview Sunday.
Ottawa officially submitted its bid to Amazon last week, along with another 237 North American cities vying to be home to what the retail giant calls HQ2. Ottawa's bid included about 10 other possible sites in Ottawa-Gatineau, although they aren't identified in the video and mentioned in passing as "additional suburban lands."
Amazon, the world's largest online merchandise seller, announced it plans to invest $5 billion US to develop the new site, which will house as many as 50,000 workers.
Video touts uncompleted projects nearby
Though some highlights in the video aren't yet built nor approved, including the NHL arena, Patacairk said it's about showing a "futuristic" concept of what the site would look like years from now.
"This is to grab their attention so that we can get to the next step when they start short listing cities, [to] be on that short list. And hopefully get them in the city and start showing them around to all the different sites and what we have to offer in our city," he said.
But it's not just the location that Invest Ottawa is touting.
"HQ2 will be embedded in and surrounded by a global technology and research ecosystem that has deep roots and is the most intensive in the country," the video says.
It goes on to say, "the region's [information and communication technology] workforce is 89,000-strong and the region already boasts the country's most educated populace and the second highest concentration of engineers and scientists in North America."
Patacairk said he expects Amazon will narrow down a short list by the end of this year and announce the winning city sometime in 2018.
Skeptics online, however, have been quick to point out that a city like Ottawa likely isn't on Amazon's radar.
To the naysayers, Patacairk has three words: "Watch the video."