The Ottawa Senators are developing Club Bell, an extensive premium seat renovation at Canadian Tire Centre.
The project, expected to cost over $6 million, is tied to a 12-year sponsorship renewal that Bell Canada signed with the Senators last season, said Geoff Publow, the team’s vice president of strategic development.
The project introduces theater suites and loge boxes to Ottawa, Publow said, and adds 300 club seats. Rossetti, the arena’s original architect, designed the improvements.
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Club Bell will be a new premium area.
Photo by: ROSSETTI |
Club Bell will span 20,000 square feet on the 100 level in the arena’s west end, where the Senators shoot twice.
The team is positioning the new seats as a “premium experience redefined,” Publow said. “We’re taking this to a higher level that people have not seen in our market.”
Pricing on the three new products will be announced this week. The Senators hired Legends Global Sales to take the lead on selling the new premium inventory with assistance from the team’s marketing staff.
Legends’ Jamie Weinstein is the project’s general manager and is heading a group of five Legends employees working out of the arena. Together, the team and the agency will open a sales center at the facility containing models of a suite and loge box for fans to sample the experience.
Officials converted a traditional suite, a few regular seats and meeting space to develop the sales center. It opens Thursday, Publow said.
To date, the 18-year-old facility’s premium seat mix has been restricted to 142 traditional suites and 2,376 club seats. To clear space for the new inventory, 16 traditional suites will be eliminated.
At the top of the lower bowl, the 14 new theater suites will have six to 10 seats in the form of high-end leather chairs, private hospitality space and televisions.
The design is similar to what several other arenas have done in recent years to replace unsold inventory and meet the needs of smaller businesses. In Ottawa, the traditional suites were part of the team’s nightly rentals, Publow said.
The loges, one tier below the theater suites in pricing and location, are groups of four seats with tabletops and movable chairs. The new club seats, to the sides and in front of the loges, will be an upgraded seat with in-seat food service, a new amenity for that area, he said.
The new seats, supported by a larger group hospitality space, are all connected to an all-inclusive food and beverage program. The province of Ontario prohibits teams from including beer, wine and alcohol in those ticket packages, but fans will be able to buy drinks at a bar in the larger lounge, Publow said.
The Senators also plan to build a new event-level club connected to lower bowl seats. Concourse upgrades are in the works.
All told, the renovations will total $13.5 million to $18 million, including Club Bell. The team, Bell Canada and Aramark, the arena’s food provider, are funding the projects. Bell Canada’s extension covers the club’s naming rights.
