RA House of Sport project takes root

By Dan Plouffe

With Rio 2016 on the horizon, the RA Centre unveiled plans back in town for a project that stands to benefit many of the organizations behind the Canadian athletes who compete in the Olympics.

“The term we keep using is ‘re-imagining the RA,’” says Tosha Rhodenizer, the CEO of the 75-year-old not-for-profit organization. “It’s taking a good, hard look at what we do, how we serve the community, what’s working, what’s not, what’s growing, what’s in a decline.

“We have some under-utilized spaces within the RA, and we were looking at what opportunities in the community might exist.”

The first product of the initiative is the RA House of Sport. The idea is to lease “financially attractive” office space to roughly 15 multi-sport or national sports organizations in an attempt to “recreate the magic” of the former James Naismith building – which housed all NSOs under one roof locally until the early 1990s – and “even take it that much further,” Rhodenizer highlights.

Built in the 1950s, the RA’s west wing will be renovated to accommodate the groups, which can share the cost of conference rooms, IT services, and possibly employees (in the case of small organizations that couldn’t hire their own finance person, for example), Rhodenizer details.

Before publicly announcing their plans, the RA received letters of intent from organizations ready to occupy around 3/4 of the total available space.

“These are organizations that will be definitely attractive for other NSOs just to be around,” signals Rhodenizer. “It’s an exciting time at the RA.”

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Pre-construction work for the House of Sport has begun, with tenants’ move-in date targeted for next summer.

As part of the renovation, the RA’s old gymnasium will be converted to modern office space, while a new gym will be built in place of the roundabout that currently sits in front of the west entrance.

It’s the start of what could turn into a major facility expansion on the RA’s 40 acres – one of the city’s few centrally-located sports sites with room to grow.

“We’re looking very seriously at a significant new build,” Rhodenizer indicates, noting the 80,000 to 100,000 square-foot expansion would be roughly the size of half the current RA.

“We would love our new building to be deemed a Canadian Sport Institute (centre) as well – the CSI Ottawa or national capital region,” she adds, noting that it wouldn’t be to the scale of past Games hosts like Vancouver, Calgary or Toronto, but could perhaps accommodate national team athletes for training camps, “or just being able to support local athletes beyond how they’re currently supported.”

The RA anticipates making more announcements on support for the House of Sport project in the coming months.