It looks like the proposed $650-million redevelopment of Portage Place is one step closer to fruition.
There are plenty of Is to dot and Ts to cross on this proposed deal. The sales agreement released Wednesday, which provides further details on the plan for True North Real Estate Development (an arm of True North Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Winnipeg Jets) to buy and redevelop the mall, looks promising.
So, what’s not to love about this deal? Not much.
ARCHITECTURE49 RENDERING
The conceptual drawings are stunning, showing an outdoor pedestrian greenway, a 12-storey health-care centre and a residential tower.
If you spend any time walking along Portage Avenue between Vaughan Street and Main Street, you’ve probably noticed there’s never been more vacant street-level retail/office space than there is today.
It’s not a ghost town, but it’s not far off.
It could be worse. Imagine what the downtown strip would look like today were it not for TNSE’s multiple real estate investments? It would be tumbleweed city.
So when the company comes to the table with a proposal (first revealed last year) that would turn a failed taxpayer-built shopping mall into a 1.2-million-square-foot mixed-use space, it should be welcomed with open arms.
“Anybody who knows Winnipeg knows that Portage Place right now is a massive footprint in Winnipeg’s downtown that is not performing anywhere near what it needs to perform to,” Mayor Scott Gillingham, who supports the project, said this week. “We need a significant investment at that site to really unlock other investments in the downtown as well.”
That’s an understatement. It’s why the city could provide almost $40 million in grants over 25 years – a pittance really, about $1.6 million a year, for such a massive development – to support the project.
Even the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, long opposed to handing out government grants to private-sector companies (as I have been in the past) is in favour of the deal.
“Instead of just giving a blank cheque for some sort of development support, it’s all tied to things that should be done,” Gage Haubrich, Prairie director of the federation, told the Free Press. “In this case, because of how big the development’s going to be and all the stipulations attached to the agreement, it’s a much better use (of tax dollars) than could have been done.”
The alternative is the continued deterioration of a shopping mall that has never lived up to its promise as a retail anchor that would save downtown. No single large development can. The evidence on that is pretty clear.
However, multiple investments that work together to encourage people to live and work downtown at least give a sagging core area, such as Winnipeg’s, some hope. When those dollars come primarily from the private sector – as is the case in this proposed development – politicians and the public should rally around it.
The conceptual drawings of the project are stunning. They show an outdoor pedestrian greenway, a 12-storey health-care centre and a residential tower that would include 216 housing units, up to 40 per cent of which would be deemed affordable under Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. standards.
The proposed redevelopment would provide downtown with a full-service, street-level grocery store – a critical component of any plan to attract more people to live downtown. It would also include office space, community centres and social agencies.
There are several partnerships that go along with this deal, including one with the Southern Chiefs’ Organization (the group that’s redeveloping the Hudson’s Bay building downtown) to deliver and manage the housing component.
The province has signed a letter of intent to lease the health tower.
There are a lot of stakeholders involved in this project. The public benefits are immense.
It’s tough to image what could kibosh it. True North is not commenting on it publicly at this point, which is not surprising given the complexities of the deal.
TNSE executive chairman Mark Chipman, who has done more for downtown than any group or individual over the past two decades, is well-known for his deft ability to avoid negotiating in the media. His quiet, behind-the-scenes work to bring an NHL franchise back to Winnipeg in 2011 is lauded in the business world as the gold standard for getting a large-scale deal done.
This one appears to be no exception.
Winnipeg needs this development. It’s not going to transform downtown on its own, but add in the work SCO is doing on the Bay building, along with investments made by the Manitoba Métis Federation through the purchase of the former Bank of Montreal building at Portage and Main, there is the real promise of transforming downtown into something that makes Winnipeggers proud.
tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca
Tom Brodbeck
Columnist
Tom Brodbeck is a columnist with the Free Press and has over 30 years experience in print media. He joined the Free Press in 2019. Born and raised in Montreal, Tom graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and commerce. Read more about Tom.
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