[esquire]

^ The sheer size of our downtown is a tremendous obstacle to overcome for sure. A single highrise residential building can make a major impact in a place like Victoria, Saskatoon or Halifax but it is barely noticed here... you need a cluster for them to be truly felt.

But that said, most new developments downtown are fairly substantial in size. You don't often see one or two storey buildings go up. So new projects like this one that are going up on parking lots are still a huge net gain in that you get the benefit of eliminating a windswept parking lot, and adding a significant new building. Not that downtown Winnipeg has been undergoing a development boom or anything, but there has been enough built (or commenced) over the last 10 years to really make a noticeable impact on the large, ugly clusters of parking lots downtown.