City staff recommended in a report released Monday that councillors seek offers to lease the 18-year-old facility in light of a competing offer from Beacon Sports Capital Partners for minor league baseball.
The city is also undertaking a study to determine how best to retrofit the stadium for the long-term use of a baseball team. The report will go before the finance and economic development committee this week.
The stadium is currently leased by The Fat Cats, an Intercounty Baseball League team, under a parent-group lease with the Ottawa Stadium Group that expires in March 2012.
The staff-recommended requirements of the new lease require hosting a baseball team, and in the long term, the city should seek professional or semi-professional baseball to lease the stadium for a decade starting in 2013, the report added.
That report strikes a very different tone from an environmental study released in March that said baseball was not a viable use for the stadium given the decline of the sport in Canada. "There is little or no current evidence to indicate that a purpose-built baseball stadium can be financially sustained in the long-term by reliance on a professional or semi-professional baseball being the predominant use for the facility," the report in March read.
"The financial viability of maintaining the stadium structure for the long-term will likely be dependent of the ability to attract a significant number of other customer paying events."The March report recommended converting the stadium to a mixed-use facility suitable for concerts and other events.
As for the newly announced bidding process, it will proceed in three stages: a mandatory submission stage that includes project requirements, a financial offer and then a period of due diligence.
All submissions for the lease "must be for the purpose of playing professional or semi-professional baseball at Ottawa Stadium" with security of "10 per cent of the value of one year's lease payment," the report stated.
Tenants would also be required to submit a financial plan including other events, such as concerts, that would generate revenue. OSG has sought an extension for their lease until October, but the city noted Monday that staff would need access to the stadium to perform upgrades in order for the least to be extended. "Under the existing lease, all life cycle and capital costs remain the responsibility of the city," the report read.
"For the city to consider this extension request, the current lease agreement must be amended to allow the city to have access to the facility and make necessary improvements and repairs for any future tenants ... the city cannot undertake any work on the stadium unless OSG provides its prior written consent."
In the long-term, the city will seek a professional or semi-professional team for the 2013 baseball season, the report noted. Requests for offers will open in mid-November. The stadium will require $3.9 million in lifecycle improvements in the next decade, with $700,000 of that to come by 2013, the report noted.
Beacon's bid for the stadium comes at a time when the city is already considering how to best use the stadium and change the surrounding neighbourhood to facilitate pedestrian access. The city's draft budget, released last week, includes $7.7 million in funding for a long-discussed Coventry Road overpass that will link the VIA Rail station to the baseball stadium. Design funding on the overpass was approved in May.
The environmental study report approved by council in March recommended the construction of a footbridge on the grounds that it will provide "social, cultural and environmental value to the city."
The Ottawa Stadium's first user was the triple-A Ottawa Lynx, which played baseball in the facility from its inaugural season in 1992 until 2008, when poor attendance prompted the league to move the team out of town.
The Ottawa Rapidz baseball team used the stadium for a season until they folded. OSG was the sole respondent to a December 2009 request by city staff for "best offers to lease" the stadium, which it was awarded in March 2010.