The National Capital Commission and Ottawa Senators have reached an agreement that sets the stage for the development of a long-sought new arena just west of the city’s downtown.

The NCC and National Hockey League club had until Friday to get the deal done in accordance with a memorandum of agreement signed in 2022 and later extended.

The commission agreed to sell a 10-acre federally owned land parcel in LeBreton Flats to Capital Sports Development, the Sens’ parent company. Original plans had called for the NCC to lease out a six-acre site in LeBreton Flats to the team.

The NCC co-ordinates the management and development of federal Crown lands in the Ottawa region. The commission usually provides development land to third parties under long-term leases. But in this case, the NCC made an exception by agreeing to sell the property.

“It’s a great first step, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us here,” Senators President and CEO Cyril Leeder said during a news conference Friday.

“It allows the heavy lifting to go forward now.”

Next steps include the completion of design work and budgeting, along with the submission of a comprehensive development plan to the City of Ottawa. Tobi Nussbaum, the commission’s CEO, said the agreement will build on development phases previously announced as part of the NCC Building LeBreton project.

“It’s been a long road,” Nussbaum told reporters during the news conference.

The event was held at the Canadian Tire Centre, the arena that the Sens have called home since 1996. Known by different names over the years, the arena has long been considered as inadequate primarily because of its distance from the city’s core and main population base.

The club has struggled financially at times during its 28-year existence, and the arena location has been cited as a key cause of the problems. (Kanata was formerly an Ottawa suburb.)

“Our teams have worked hard over the last year to get here,” said Nussbaum. “By siting a major events centre in our downtown core, we will be injecting new energy and excitement into the region, increasing our draw to visitors and helping to really catalyze the LeBreton Flats development.”

The club’s previous attempts to secure a new arena site had failed as negotiations broke down. Nussbaum said Michael Andlauer’s purchase of the team from late owner Eugene Melnyk’s family was a “key event” when it came to reaching a deal.

Melnyk arranged a deal in 2019 to redevelop part of LeBreton Flats. But that agreement broke down due to a legal dispute between Melnyk and former business partner John Ruddy. A $700-million lawsuit was settled out of court.

As the MOU sputtered towards its Friday deadline, different groups and Mayor Mark Sutcliffe called for other sites to be considered instead of LeBreton Flats.

But Leeder said in XX that Senators were only serious about developing a new arena in LeBreton Flats. Originally developed in the 1800s, the arean’s lands have been used for lumber mills, factories, working-class homes and a snow-removal site, acclaimed writer Roy MacGregor noted in the Globe and Mail.

But the vacant 29-acre parcel is now “a swath of rubble and contaminated soil.”

“I know it’s years, not months, before a shovel goes in the ground,” said Leeder.