Happy Goat Coffee given first right of refusal for shops at future LRT stations
Ottawa city council has approved giving Happy Goat Coffee the first right of refusal for setting up at five future LRT stations when Stage 2 launches.
The Ottawa-based coffee chain has a location at the Blair LRT station. It won a contract prior to the launch of Stage 1 of LRT to also have kiosks at Tunney's Pasture, Rideau, and Hurdman stations. To date, only the Rideau Station shop ever opened, but it has since closed because it was financially unviable.
- The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App
- Sign up now for our nightly CTV News Ottawa newsletter
City staff said in a report prepared for the finance and corporate services committee and council that Happy Goat has never reached its sales targets.
The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed ridership patterns across the city's transit network, and public confidence in the LRT has been shaken by numerous incidents and failures on the line in the short time it's been operational. That includes a stench passengers long complained about at Rideau Station.
Happy Goat Coffee owner Henry Assad told CTV News Ottawa in September he's cautiously optimistic about the LRT.
"We see the evidence at Blair Station. It has been progressively getting better and we're breaking even at Blair," he said.
Now, the city is giving Happy Goat another kick at the can with Stage 2.
Council voted to waive the section of the city's leasing policy that requires public notice of leasable city space.
"The intent of this proposal would provide additional investor interest and growth opportunities for Happy Goat while maintaining customer service standards. This first right of refusal would be subject to the Leasing Policy requirements, would not be transferable and would require Happy Goat to negotiate in good faith a new separate lease agreement for these five stations," the report said.
It passed unanimously at council on Wednesday.
The future commercial spaces would be at Trim and Place d‘Orléans stations in the east, and Alqonquin, Bayshore, and Lincoln Fields stations in the west.
"We will evaluate each one of them separately and we will make that decision when the time comes," Assad told CTV News Ottawa last month.
The current timeline for the opening of the eastern extension is 2025. The western extension has been delayed until 2026.
Happy Goat currently has 14 locations across Ottawa.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.