Winnipeg Construction X

[esquire]

I suppose that if the other side of the street is decent, it can offset the impact of a huge parkade.

Here's an example from Chicago... I specifically remember walking down this street thinking it was pleasant at street level considering that one side had a gigantic, somewhat ugly parkade on one side of it.

https://goo.gl/maps/eViFZf78EWcHMk948

[pegcityboy]

Fantastic debate guys ! You all make good good points , I’ve enjoyed reading the different opinions !

[pacman]

Originally Posted by TRiToNDREyJA

Both parties are completely valid on this debate, but I will say this. It's not that this proposal falls just a bit shy of lofty expectations we may have developed hearing the '50 storey' rumours.

This tower literally looks like it'll be a conrete & hardie board commie block with a box parking podium with zero intent to interact with the street.

There's a huge gradient of factors in a city like Winnipeg that's had so little activity for the last few decades, only picking up recently. Given that, we should have a very wide set of expectations and tolerance for what we want to see and what we welcome from developers from a design standpoint. This proposal as seen though falls close to the borderline of being tolerable in our cities case though IMO, even with all things considered.

And by that I mean on the wrong side of the borderline unfortunately.

BUT... with some small changes which I hope we'll see, it can cross over the borderline to the other side & become something most people can be even just a little happy about without just clinging to the height & scale of it. Even only one of these few things can make it palatable.

- Fix the freaking podium, it's lazy and ugly. Modelling from the drawings I found it's literally a perfect square extruded along the width of the tower, that's pretty telling.

- Make the windows an architectural element instead of a bare necessity, join them up vertically maybe. That would give this building a small visual positive.

- If you're gonna keep the hat, light it up like in the renders. If they light up under the balconies like shown then maybe IRL it will look pretty good actually. I've not been much of a critic of hats myself.

That's my dollar of talk as opposed to just my 2 cents... to me it doesn't seem unreasonable.

Good points. I think lighting the hat would make a world of difference on this building and shouldn't break the bank. Love lighting on buildings and wish it was more of a focus in Winnipeg.

Hopefully the podium can be fancied up to give a little more curb appeal. But I don't hold much hope since it seems the developer is looking at volume over quality.

Joining the windows vertically is definitely an improvement looking at your rendering in the other thread but again not holding out much hope.

For me, relatively small things like lighting the hat and using some higher quality materials on the podium would make this building well worth the effort. Hopefully the developer is open to constructive criticism,

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by borkborkbork

Also, "it's ugly, but we can't afford to be choosy" is a perspective for a city planner or municipal planner to take.

This is a discussion forum about buildings. It's for people who care about urban form. You don't go onto a Telsa forum and post pictures of your Corolla and expect them to give you a thumbs up and attaboy.

(And also, this building is not a Corolla, it's a Nissan NV. It achieves its stated function with the absolute least attention to aesthetics possible.)

This post made me laugh....good one.

To me, not every building has to be an award winner. I'm quite happy to see utilitarian buildings create density as long as they are good on the street. This however is a major, image defining building. If it was in Toronto nobody would look twice, but in a city with so few towers, the idea that any building is a good building doesn't really fly. This building is a clunker, no two ways about it. It doesn't even have to be beautiful, but i find it hard to have the attitude that they all can't be winners on a project of this impact.

Hopefully the rendering was just bad. It looks like it has changed for the better in the elevations. That giant parkade is really the make or break piece.

[H2man]

I am really enjoying the conversation and lots has been said. I only have one thing "new" to add:

Regarding the parkade podium, in addition to the obvious cleanup using e.g. good materials and some added design, and ideally lowering it down several floors, it would be great if it could be concealed with retail and maybe office space for units fronting Smith and Graham. Basically, bury the parkade in the interior. Disguise the fact that it's mostly a parkade with even just some shallow, useful (and revenue-generating) features that pretty it up and interact with the street.

I think that's all it would take to make it passable. Personally I can live with the tower and fedora features if they absolutely have to exist as is. Everyone seems to agree on that parkade though.

[Peggerino]

More people downtown and one less parking lot is fantastic. Architecture wise, ya it's pretty brutal but hey, so is Winnipeg. Fix the podium and it's good enough for me.

[Wpgstvsouth94]

I’m up for any proposal downtown that is announced at this point. I hope they announce it to be higher! More people downtown I’m all for.

[buzzg]

Does anyone have an idea how far along Smith this stretches? It seems way bigger than the St. Regis site but maybe it's just hard to judge because it's so big.

I ask because couldn't the city have them put the parkade entrance facing the east-west lane (that you likely don't realize is there due to the surface lots) that runs parallel to Graham, bisecting the block? I understand why the city doesn't like entrances off back lanes (wait actually I don't) but this has way more space to be a wide lane since there's nothing on either side of it right now. Then you avoid a massive curb cut on Smith, and the city needs to maintain access to the actual north-south back lane anyway.

Originally Posted by T'Cona

Please build that here. Thank you.

https://www.google.com/maps/@49.8990...7i13312!8i6656

I actually think Adelaide will be the next big thing. Out of nowhere the north end of Princess started filling up (Market Lands aside) and there's very few empty lots left on Princess in the Exchange. I think that will start shifting to Adelaide now. With some improved streetscaping and new trees, it has a ton of potential for a great residential-focused street. A lot more attractive then all the traffic on Princess TBH.

[Highwayman]

Originally Posted by Wpgstvsouth94

I’m up for any proposal downtown that is announced at this point. I hope they announce it to be higher! More people downtown I’m all for.

I personally like the tower part. The podium looks honest brick to me. But in a very modern way. It feels likes the podium is trying to look retro. But is missing the bag.

The towers look amazing to me. Those hats lite up at night which they most likely would be would look amazing from far away.

We need people downtown. This is density. We all. Den asking for it. And let's be honest we have so many parking lots downtown it would take a Toronto type boom to fill them. Settling for these 15-20 story ones isn't actually good. You just wasted a lot in the core on a dinky building. And that in the long run will come back to haunt you. Those smaller ones should be closer to Broadway. Fill that area up. The core needs as many as possible high rises in the 40 plus range. The more dense they are the better.

And I have a feeling we will get a 50 story from this as that parkade is too big. Shrink it down to say 3 floors and CRus on the front and then add more floors to the towers. Or better yet leave the one tower at 40 floors and blast the second tower to 50 plus. That with the two hats would look striking.

[TRiToNDREyJA]

Originally Posted by Highwayman

I personally like the tower part. The podium looks honest brick to me. But in a very modern way. It feels likes the podium is trying to look retro. But is missing the bag.

The towers look amazing to me. Those hats lite up at night which they most likely would be would look amazing from far away.

We need people downtown. This is density. We all. Den asking for it. And let's be honest we have so many parking lots downtown it would take a Toronto type boom to fill them. Settling for these 15-20 story ones isn't actually good. You just wasted a lot in the core on a dinky building. And that in the long run will come back to haunt you. Those smaller ones should be closer to Broadway. Fill that area up. The core needs as many as possible high rises in the 40 plus range. The more dense they are the better.

And I have a feeling we will get a 50 story from this as that parkade is too big. Shrink it down to say 3 floors and CRus on the front and then add more floors to the towers. Or better yet leave the one tower at 40 floors and blast the second tower to 50 plus. That with the two hats would look striking.

It's only one tower, take a look at the unmodified render. Your points still stand though.

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by buzzg

Does anyone have an idea how far along Smith this stretches? It seems way bigger than the St. Regis site but maybe it's just hard to judge because it's so big.

I ask because couldn't the city have them put the parkade entrance facing the east-west lane (that you likely don't realize is there due to the surface lots) that runs parallel to Graham, bisecting the block? I understand why the city doesn't like entrances off back lanes (wait actually I don't) but this has way more space to be a wide lane since there's nothing on either side of it right now. Then you avoid a massive curb cut on Smith, and the city needs to maintain access to the actual north-south back lane anyway.




I actually think Adelaide will be the next big thing. Out of nowhere the north end of Princess started filling up (Market Lands aside) and there's very few empty lots left on Princess in the Exchange. I think that will start shifting to Adelaide now. With some improved streetscaping and new trees, it has a ton of potential for a great residential-focused street. A lot more attractive then all the traffic on Princess TBH.

Parkades are not permitted off back lanes. Especially huge ones. The new building looks like it goes to the south end of the lot that is/was next to the St Regis.

That lane doesnt run the stretch of the block. It's only on the east half and end at the north-south lane. Theres a drive aisle on the west half that looks like the lane.

[TRiToNDREyJA]

Originally Posted by buzzg

Does anyone have an idea how far along Smith this stretches? It seems way bigger than the St. Regis site but maybe it's just hard to judge because it's so big.

I ask because couldn't the city have them put the parkade entrance facing the east-west lane (that you likely don't realize is there due to the surface lots) that runs parallel to Graham, bisecting the block? I understand why the city doesn't like entrances off back lanes (wait actually I don't) but this has way more space to be a wide lane since there's nothing on either side of it right now. Then you avoid a massive curb cut on Smith, and the city needs to maintain access to the actual north-south back lane anyway.

This is around what I got as far as street-side length using the drawings as a base.

[Bdog]

I've been on these boards since about 2000. For the last two decades the message has always been *Downtown needs residents* to thrive, revitalize, and progress. While I'm sure we'd all love a signature tower, I not going to bellyache too much over a project that could bring up to 1000 new residents into the very heart of our downtown.

"I mean, it sure would be nice to have another 400 units a block from Portage and Main, but what will the people in Edmonton say when they see our skyline shot during hockey night in Canada?"

[armorand93]

Originally Posted by TRiToNDREyJA

This is around what I got as far as street-side length using the drawings as a base.

Bonus to the site too: being right in between Portage & WPS, across the corner from the library too, safety might actually improve to the point where people don't have to worry about randoms running around with machetes down the street... would be kind of easier to encourage "downtown high density development" when they're not having to try & sell people past the barbarians at the gates. Oh, did I mention local businesses too? Or at least whats left of them that Pallister hasn't completely destroyed with his bullshit?

[biguc]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Parkades are not permitted off back lanes.

Why though? Why even have back lanes if you can't use them? The Riverwalk has its parkade entrance off the alley and it's fine. Whatever imaginary problem it's supposed to prevent, it can't be worse than having curb cuts and massive garage entrances on sidewalks.

[wags_in_the_peg]

Originally Posted by Bdog

"I mean, it sure would be nice to have another 400 units a block from Portage and Main, but what will the people in Edmonton say when they see our skyline shot during hockey night in Canada?"

The hockey night in Canada shot is almost always either the Provencher bridge also known as big dick bridge, or the human rights museum also known to some of the ugliest building around. In my opinion that is the nicest shot in all of Winnipeg and it’s funny how so many people are against those two structures.

[3de14eec6a]

Originally Posted by biguc

Why though? Why even have back lanes if you can't use them? The Riverwalk has its parkade entrance off the alley and it's fine. Whatever imaginary problem it's supposed to prevent, it can't be worse than having curb cuts and massive garage entrances on sidewalks.

And it's why we have a street that ended up looking like this: https://twitter.com/680cjob/status/1161276457303195649

[esquire]

Originally Posted by wags_in_the_peg

The hockey night in Canada shot is almost always either the Provencher bridge also known as big dick bridge, or the human rights museum also known to some of the ugliest building around. In my opinion that is the nicest shot in all of Winnipeg and it’s funny how so many people are against those two structures.

The hockey game skyline shots are almost all from 2011 so it won't make a difference anyway

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by biguc

Why though? Why even have back lanes if you can't use them? The Riverwalk has its parkade entrance off the alley and it's fine. Whatever imaginary problem it's supposed to prevent, it can't be worse than having curb cuts and massive garage entrances on sidewalks.

I'm not sure. But I'd assume they're narrow and having 100's of vehicles going in and out is the problem. But I don't really know and yes agrees on the curb cuts.

Back lanes are a relic of a bygone era. Even the grid streets lanes are there for ice delivery by cart. Even my grandparents 1960's bungalow had an ice box and milk drop in the back wall.

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by wags_in_the_peg

The hockey night in Canada shot is almost always either the Provencher bridge also known as big dick bridge, or the human rights museum also known to some of the ugliest building around. In my opinion that is the nicest shot in all of Winnipeg and it’s funny how so many people are against those two structures.

That is the postcard shot of Winnipeg. Not sure how anyone would be against those structures.