Winnipeg Developments

[Yellow Fever]

your pic didn't show, so I got these from the link you provided.

[WinnipegPatriot]

Originally Posted by roccerfeller

This too!

http://www.chrisd.ca/blog/56950/mani...ongboat-group/

YES!!!!!

[WinnipegPatriot]

Very good news: I hope the McLaren is part of this! This building is so gorgeous, and would be great for apartments or condos.


City, province still want hotel buyouts

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/loc...160801445.html

[WinnipegPatriot]

Originally Posted by Yellow Fever

your pic didn't show, so I got these from the link you provided.

Nice, obviously in the village...tall and slender, I love it! I would love to see something like this rise at the corner of Main and McDermot...

[Greco Roman]

According to some in the know on the rival forum, we are being told not to get our hopes up for that pencil tower, as there are some serious by-law hurdles to get through. It isn't dead, but it's not likely, at least in that area of town.

[roccerfeller]

Originally Posted by Yellow Fever

your pic didn't show, so I got these from the link you provided.

Cheers YF!

Originally Posted by WinnipegPatriot

YES!!!!!

Yeah, its great news. They're looking to get it started & underway next year, for a 2014 opening. Also around the time the convention centre expansion will be going through so we will (finally) have a few of the biggest parking lot sites downtown going away.

Originally Posted by WinnipegPatriot

Nice, obviously in the village...tall and slender, I love it! I would love to see something like this rise at the corner of Main and McDermot...

Agreed. Would be nice to see a few of these along Main st.

[JamieDavid Exchange]

Am I missing some news???? There's construction fencing around the Pump House!!!!




SkyII construction progress.

[Gorgon]

Project projections

A rundown of where Winnipeg's at with some of its biggest developmentsIf there's one thing Winnipeggers can't stop obsessing about, it's the progress of our mega-projects.

We're transfixed when they're announced by politicians at ribbon-cutting ceremonies. We feign outrage when they take too long to build or go overbudget. We complain when their construction barricades impede our movements by milliseconds.

But we also love to see the darn things get built. Here's what's going up this summer:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/loc...161889085.html

[Gorgon]

Originally Posted by JamieDavid Exchange

Am I missing some news???? There's construction fencing around the Pump House!!!!

There was something in the Free Press just a few days ago...

UPDATE. Found it: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opi...wAllComments=y

[Fozzy33]

Permit granted to demolish Shanghai Restaurant

Council voted to grant a permit to demolish the Coronation Block, the 139-year-old King Street institution also known as the Shanghai Restaurant building.

In 2010, the non-profit Chinatown Development Corp. sought permission to demolish the vacant building to operate a surface parking lot. The city refused to allow the demolition without a plan to build a new residential structure. The Chinatown Development Corp. now wants to maintain the site as a vacant, landscaped lot.

Council voted 13-3 to approve the plan. Couns. Jenny Gerbasi (Fort Rouge), Ross Eadie (Mynarski) and Harvey Smith (Daniel McIntyre) voted against it.

Property chairman Coun. Jeff Browaty said it currently costs the non-profit group thousands of dollars a year to maintain the property and the goal is to eventually build housing for seniors.

Heritage Winnipeg's Cindy Tugwell urged council not to grant the demolition permit until the corporation comes forward with a business plan. She said it sends the wrong message to developers, noting it took years and the right building owner to redevelop heritage sites such as the Avenue building or Kelly House.

"It is extremely historic," Tugwell said. "It is one of the oldest buildings in the downtown."

Gerbasi said council should stick to its 2010 decision not to allow the block to be demolished before there is a plan for the site. She said the economy or finances could change, and the city should not take out a building until a solid plan is ready to go.

"It's still an empty space in the downtown," Gerbasi said of the idea of putting sod down on the site.


l say this is good news. l just wish there was a plan to develop the site.

[Greco Roman]

That is just great. So they are going to demolish one of the oldest (and not to mention historic) buildings in the city to just let it sit as an empty lot for who knows how long?

What a bunch of useless, backassward, hick council this city has. They all need to be replaced; the sooner the better.

Idiots, all of them.

[WinnipegPatriot]

No kidding.

Council stipulated that sod must be put down...WOW! With no time frame, the lot can remain undeveloped for years. Of course, when it does get replaced with seniors housing, the building will be atrocious, and a suburban-type development with no regard for the urban fabric of the area.

[WinnipegPatriot]

West End buildings rejuvenated

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/bus...163380306.html

[Fozzy33]

Dozens of descendants of Winnipeg's first postmaster would be in line for a windfall if the city ever decides to sell the Public Safety Building to private interests, historical and family records suggest.

Earlier this week, the City of Winnipeg confirmed the city's police station sits on land donated in 1875 under the condition it must always be used for public purposes. Under the terms of the agreement, the rectangular parcel bounded by William Avenue, Main and Princess streets and what used to be Market Avenue would revert to the donors' descendants in the event it's ever used for private purposes.



History lesson

ACCORDING to the terms of an 1875 land donation, the southern section of Winnipeg's Civic Centre complex would revert to the descendants of a pair of Ross siblings if the city ever decides not to use this land for public purposes.

Parish records from the 19th century show transfers of this land to the city from William Roderick Ross and his sister Margaret Ross. But according to a 1947 Winnipeg Tribune article, a total of four members of Winnipeg's Ross family were involved in the donation of the land that now stands below part of the Civic Centre complex:
■Jemima Ross, widow of William Ross, the city's first postmaster
■Margaret Ross, her daughter
■William Roderick Ross, son of William and Jemima
■Jemima (Matheson) Ross, wife of William Roderick Ross

This discrepancy has no bearing on the number of living descendants who would be entitled to a windfall if the city ever sells the land, as the lineage is one and the same.

-- Kives and Skerritt

Related Items

Articles
•Sale of PSB threatened by 1875 deal


Historical land records show those donors were siblings William R. Ross and Margaret Ross, the children of William Ross Sr., the first postmaster in the Red River settlement. His former residence -- Ross House Museum in Point Douglas -- became the first post office in Western Canada.

Parish records show the land was transferred to the City of Winnipeg on June 7, 1875, for $600. It's home to the Council Building at city hall, the Public Safety Building and a portion of the Civic Centre parkade.

The city is contemplating the sale of the Public Safety Building after the Winnipeg Police Service moves into its new headquarters in the former Canada Post building on Graham Avenue. City officials hoped the sale of the PSB would offset part of the $194-million cost of the new police headquarters project.

The city is also considering the sale of the Civic Centre parkade, whose $6.2-million repair job is no longer in the Winnipeg Parking Authority's business plan. But any sale of this land to private interests would be complicated, as there are 19 living descendants of Margaret and William R. Ross, according to family records that do not even include the youngest generation.

The condition of the 1875 donation has been passed down through the generations, said one of the donors' descendants.

"We always knew city hall stood on the family land," said Winnipeg resident Aileen Rouse, one of Margaret Ross's great-grandchildren.

She said she has no problem if the land is sold to a public institution such as Red River College, whose Exchange District campus sits across from the Public Safety Building and the Civic Centre parkade on Princess Street.

"If it's a public use, then that's the way it would stand," Rouse said. "But if they sell it (to a private interest), it would have to go back to the original agreement."

On a previous occasion when the city contemplated selling a chunk of this land, the Ross siblings' descendants reminded the city about the agreement. Use city hall site or lose it, the Winnipeg Tribune headline warned in 1947, when the city was contemplating a new location to build a city hall to replace what was then a Victorian-style "gingerbread" structure on Main Street.

A similar dynamic is playing out 65 years later, as city lawyers are conducting due diligence about the condition attached to the 137-year-old land donation, in terms of how it would affect the sale of the Public Safety Building and Civic Centre parkade.

The city faces several different scenarios, depending on what its lawyers determine, chief operations officer Deepak Joshi said Wednesday.

One of those scenarios would involve a sale to a public institution such as Red River College.

While the two structures together are assessed at $12.4 million, it's unclear what they would fetch when the parkade requires $6.2 million in repairs and the PSB faces a Tyndall-stone recladding job of unknown cost.

Red River College has a potential interest in the block, said communications manager Colin Fast. But the college is more concerned with completing the fundraising for the nearly complete Union Bank Tower conversion on Main Street and building a $60-million skilled trades centre at its Notre Dame Avenue campus.

"Given the location of the PSB, it makes sense, given the growth of what we're now calling the Exchange District campus. But do we have any immediate plans? No," Fast said.

[WinnipegPatriot]

Ugly! Based on the history of the railway in T'cona, a more industrial-style development would be better.


New condo complex set to break ground in Transcona this fall

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/our...163590596.html

[Fozzy33]

While downtown buildings like the Criterion Hotel were successfully redeveloped and repurposed, the Shanghai Restaurant building will become a green space.

Dec. 15, 2010: Winnipeg city council approves demolition of the Shanghai Restaurant building at 228 King St. with the following condition for redevelopment: "preparation of a firm redevelopment proposal and a formal application for a building permit."

July 18, 2012: Approval for demolition is granted with the following change to the original conditions: "receipt of an urban design submission that meets the intent of council not to allow a surface parking area."

With this revision, the requirements for demolition of a building that has stood at the heart of Winnipeg's Chinatown for longer than Chinatown has existed went from proving the building would be replaced immediately to the installation of a few thousand dollars' worth of sod and a promise to water and mow. The 130-year-old building will soon make way for a city block-sized grass field being hailed as a "much-needed" passive park for Chinatown's few hundred residents.

This raises the question: Is it the physical presence of cars that makes parking lots detrimental to the quality of a city's urban environment, or are there greater issues that laying sod does not alleviate?

The 2010 city report indicated "allowing surface parking on an interim basis may discourage the timely development of the site due to the income that is generated at low cost to the owners." This is a common argument against allowing parking lots and it is certainly true that sod, for now, prevents the collection of these revenues. Allowing the building to be demolished, however, does provide a significant economic advantage that will also likely discourage timely development. Lower property taxes on an empty lot and the elimination of building-maintenance costs removes any financial pressures that may have acted as an incentive to redevelop the site.

During the last civic election, Mayor Sam Katz referred to surface parking lots in the downtown as "magnets for crime." Creating open space between buildings results in pedestrian dead zones that can decrease security. Famed American urbanist Jane Jacobs argued safety in cities is a result of having eyes on the street. Building density and increased sidewalk traffic is a self-policing deterrent to criminal activity. Crime is attracted to secluded open spaces, and the perception of safety decreases as one's feeling of isolation increases. Open space between buildings, whether paved with asphalt or grass, promotes this seclusion, creating these "magnets for crime."

The hope is grass will make the site an active park, filled with people providing those eyes on the street. Jacobs again argues that in low density, under-populated neighbourhoods like Chinatown, parks become desolate, unsafe spaces. In her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, she writes, "You can neither lie to a neighbourhood park, nor reason with it. 'Artist's conceptions' and persuasive renderings can put pictures of life into proposed neighbourhood parks, but in real life only diverse surroundings have the practical power of inducing a natural, continuing flow of life and use."

Perhaps the greatest reason parking lots are considered detrimental to the quality of a city is that they harm the pedestrian experience by disrupting the urban streetscape. Buildings constructed to the sidewalk create a continuous edge that provides environmental shelter and visual interest at the pedestrian level. The visual expanse of the street is confined by this edge, providing a sense of enclosure that creates a feeling of intimacy and slows vehicular traffic. In Winnipeg, Corydon Avenue is a good example of these conditions working together to create an attractive pedestrian environment. Walking beside gaps between buildings, whether paved and filled with cars or grassed and vacant, significantly diminishes the quality of the pedestrian experience.

It is, of course, hoped that a new building will soon rise on the Shanghai site and the vacant lot will be a short-term condition. The damaging results, however, of previous demolition without firm plans for redevelopment can be seen across Winnipeg's checkered downtown.

When the McIntyre Block was torn down at Portage and Main, it was hoped a new structure would soon fill the void, yet it has remained a gravel lot adjacent to our famous intersection for 33 years. The same story can be told for the Tribune Building, demolished in 1983, and the Empire Hotel in 1976. The loss of these buildings has resulted in some of the largest vacant lots existing in our downtown today.

In contrast, numerous buildings have sat abandoned for long periods and, like the Shanghai Building, were considered too expensive and too derelict to save, yet they now stand as prominent and beautifully redeveloped structures. The buildings that make up Red River College's downtown campus, soon joined by the Union Bank tower, all remained vacant for 30 years. The Criterion Hotel on McDermot Avenue was gutted by fire in 1987. Once considered unsalvageable, its beautiful terracotta facade is today home to offices and trendy ground-floor retail.

The dramatic new balconies that project over Portage Avenue are part of the Avenue Building, vacant for 13 years and often considered too rundown to restore. With patience, the conditions changed to make redevelopment of these buildings viable, even when it seemed unlikely in the short term.

The Shanghai Building will not get that opportunity. We can only hope that the decision to create yet another vacant gap in Winnipeg's toothless downtown grin doesn't follow so many previous examples and remain that way for decades to come.


l hope that they will tear it down and put up a apartment block.

[Fozzy33]

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/spe...164233216.html

Someones vision of on what it could look like if the tracks do move.

My veiw is that rapid transit should be involded in the project one way or another overall.
We have only one shot to on doing things right. So why not this project?

[1ajs]

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION WAG calls for Inuit centre architectural concepts

By: Alison Mayes
Posted: 1:00 AM |

THE Winnipeg Art Gallery will put out a worldwide call this week for architectural concepts for its planned Inuit Art and Learning Centre.
The IALC, to be connected to the WAG and built on the site of its current studio building (the former Mall Medical Building), was announced nearly two years ago with a projected cost, including an endowment, of $30 million.
Inflation and other factors have pushed the cost into the $45-million range, executive director Stephen Borys said.
"The WAG is housed in one of Canada's most significant modernist buildings," Borys said in a news release.
"Our challenge now is to find the right architectural team to design a structure that will stand next to the existing building, honouring the past while looking ahead and offering its own statement and identity."
The centre will be about 40,000 square feet in size, on at least three levels. It will showcase the WAG's public collection of Inuit art -- the world's largest -- and serve as an international centre for research and scholarship in the field. It will also house the gallery's studio and education programs


http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/loc...164233736.html

[WinnipegPatriot]

Summit comes up with creative ideas to redevelop CP Rail’s central yards

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/spe...164602866.html

[Fozzy33]

plz read under it under Winnipeg Transportaion..etc. l put this under that section.

or better yet. Just delete it.