OttawaA community centre and a gymnasium are among the options the City of Ottawa is floating for what to do at Grandeur Park after the Belltown Dome comes down. Residents asked to weigh in on future of Grandeur Park siteGuy Quenneville · CBC News · Posted: Dec 04, 2025 3:32 PM EST | Last Updated: 4 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 2 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Residents asked to weigh in on Belltown Dome’s futureThe City of Ottawa is quizzing residents about what to do with the site of the Belltown Dome. CBC’s Jodie Applewaithe reports on the options being presented. A community centre and a gymnasium are among the options the City of Ottawa is floating to replace the iconic but imperiled Belltown Dome.The beloved gathering space in Grandeur Park, located in Ottawa’s Britannia neighbourhood, has been used for decades as everything from a single-pad hockey rink to the site of skating parties hosted by Bay ward Coun. Theresa Kavanagh.”[Residents] wish that it would stay,” she told CBC’s Ottawa Morning. But the dome has “reached the end of its operational life,” according to the city. While it’s still being used for ball hockey, the building’s refrigeration system “broke down,” Kavanagh says. “And frankly, they were already looking at the structure itself.”The Belltown Dome in Grandeur Park is pictured here on Dec. 4, 2025. (Francis Ferland/CBC)Now the city is asking people in an online survey to weigh in on how to “reimagine” the park grounds.The site already includes the dome plus a basketball net and some playground equipment. In the short term, the city says the site could host an outdoor rink slab and basketball court, plus one of four additional features: a playground, a “water play and exploration park,” a skateboarding park, or a parkour and obstacle course. These options “can evolve and be integrated into the long-term model as timelines and funding align,” according to the city. In the long term — once the dome is demolished — the city is proposing either a community building with multi-purpose rooms, or a gymnasium. LISTEN | Kavanagh on the future of the park:Ottawa Morning8:17What should replace the Belltown Dome?The arena just west of Britannia Park has reached the end of its lifespan. The City of Ottawa is asking the public what should come next. Bay Ward councillor Teresa Kavanagh laid out some of the options.The city is also asking residents to offer other suggestions. However another single-pad indoor ice rink is unlikely, Kavanagh said. “They’re not being built anymore. It’s an efficiency issue.”‘I’ve had skating parties [there],’ Bay ward Coun. Theresa Kavanagh says of the dome. (Emma Weller/CBC)Park visitors who spoke to CBC on Thursday supported a number of the city’s suggestions, though one objected to the parkour idea, calling it a lawsuit waiting to happen. The survey also asks people if they’d like to see vestiges of the dome placed on display at the park.”But the idea of keeping the building as is would not be very efficient,” Kavanagh said. With files from Arthur White-Crummey, Jodie Applewaithe, Francis Ferland and Ottawa Morning
Gym, community centre could replace beloved but beleaguered Belltown Dome
