WARNING:
I have a better idea. Turn that area into a swamp instead.
Just hear me out.
The UofM says it wants to find ways of attracting students and recognition to the campus. What do you think would make it more likely to stand out among other universities. Some more generic lackluster development which you could find at any other University campus in North America, or take advantage of it's setting on the river and significantly enhance it's natural qualities? Turning that golf course into a wetland wouldn't be that hard at all, seeing that's what the area originally was before hand, and in fact it even apparently had a small coulee going through connecting it to the red river. A dead giveaway that this area was once a wetland is the foundation repairs going on at the 4 year old IGF stadium. Apparently the grounds of a former marshland is not the most ideal place for building giant heavy structure like a football stadium.
I understand if you think it's only gonna end up as a breeding ground for mosquitoes, but the Fort Garry has proven itself numerous times as an area where uncommonly seen wildlife can frequently be spotted. This is a place where a freaking snapping turtle was found walking in the middle of university crescent in broad daylight.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...fG_Dh7LblRKFf8
In fact snapping turtle sightings in the river at the U of M are surprisingly common. If we capitalized on this fact already and a put a wetland area right beside it could attract not only snapping turtles, but painted turtles, frogs, snakes, or even a few rare species of salamanders that we have in Manitoba. And we could design the area from scratch to specifically appeal to those animals habitat needs. It would make a great little experiment in wetland restoration, which I'm sure some people working at the university are already studying. It would reinforce winnipeg's status as a "river city" to have a little nature park like that made, and I'm sure a man made wetland constructed from scratch at a university would attract significant media attention from around the continent.
It would also be the perfect way to advertise to students the campuses expertise in ecology and environmental science, which is a pretty fast growing trendy field in the higher education world these days.
The fact that the land is already a green space should give people pause to think more carefully about developing it. They're not making anymore new green space these days. When you develop greenspace it usually means that it's gone forever, and that's just a fact. Unless someone can suggest a development plan that's truly equally as noteworthy as that I will remain firmly unconvinced that it isn't better off being left as a golf course. If the UofM wants to expand I'd prefer if they first focus on parking lot infill and expanding downtown, or even using some of that empty land they have just south of the stadium to expand their campus. The only reason they're interested in building anything on the golf course is because it's a lot of undeveloped land that's all in one place, which makes developers mouths water. But the rest of us know it only encourages incoherent and inefficient uses of land that could of just as easily have been built on any of the generously large parking lots spread throughout the campus. It sounds less "swanky" when a development plan is supposed to take place on equally large amount of area but is more spread out separately among an area I guess.
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