The next time you visit the Mayfair, you may notice something other than a movie listed on our marquee. It’s a web address: StopLansdowneMall.ca

We’ve been pretty vocal in our opposition to the Lansdowne Partnership Plan (formerly known as Lansdowne Live).

And now, we’d like to ask you to speak up, too. Tell your city councillor: Yes to development. No to the mall.

Why?

Because the plan proposes to build a 300,000+ square foot mall on the Lansdowne Park site.

This mall will kill local businesses. It will gridlock Bank Street. It will turn surrounding communities into overflow parking lots, while stealing parking from local business customers and residents. It will bulldoze our heritage. It will be built on public land and be allowed to operate rent-free – without even the potential of return on investment for decades.

In every sense, this is a bad deal for our city, and for its citizens.

When Council originally voted to designate the Mayfair a heritage building, Mayor Larry O’Brien spoke – and voted – against the designation, saying “It comes down to you either believe in heritage or you don’t.”

Based on the vote that followed, however, the majority of City Council does believe in heritage. They understand that there is more to heritage than old buildings. Our heritage is what we have inherited, but it is and what we have today – the economy, the infrastructure, the culture and the values we will leave to future generations.

There is no better place to stand up for that heritage than at Lansdowne Park, on the banks of Ontario’s only UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Rideau Canal.

At the Mayfair, we stand up for heritage. We stand up for small businesses. We stand up for our community. And we stand up for our city.

And now, we need you to stand with us.

All it takes is for you to tell your Councillor: Stop the Lansdowne Mall.

Cut.

PS. We recently sent an open letter to City Council and the Ottawa media on the subject of the Lansdowne Partnership Plan (part of which forms the post above). If you haven’t already, you can read it here, or read an excerpt with commentary here.