What would you do with portage place?

[pegcityfan]

Indoor waterpark or downtown casino!!!!! I know neither would ever happen.

Ideally:
Expand into that back parking to get rid of the daily drug festivals. Get rid of Food court or move it upstairs, turn space into front entrance & first floor spaces facing Portage into smaller store fronts (doors on Portage). Beg the city/Police to finally actually police the front and back of Portage Place. Once the drugs & loiterers move, finding a developer to build on top becomes a little more realistic. Residential and/or hotel preferably.

To be honest. Almost anything would be better than the current situation at Portage Place.

[EspionNoir]

Originally Posted by pegcityfan

Indoor waterpark or downtown casino!!!!! I know neither would ever happen.

Ideally:
Expand into that back parking to get rid of the daily drug festivals. Get rid of Food court or move it upstairs, turn space into front entrance & first floor spaces facing Portage into smaller store fronts (doors on Portage). Beg the city/Police to finally actually police the front and back of Portage Place. Once the drugs & loiterers move, finding a developer to build on top becomes a little more realistic. Residential and/or hotel preferably.

To be honest. Almost anything would be better than the current situation at Portage Place.

Is it because waterpark or a casino is not suitable for the location, or you think no one is willing to make it come true?

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by pegcityfan

Indoor waterpark or downtown casino!!!!! I know neither would ever happen.

Ideally:
Expand into that back parking to get rid of the daily drug festivals. Get rid of Food court or move it upstairs, turn space into front entrance & first floor spaces facing Portage into smaller store fronts (doors on Portage). Beg the city/Police to finally actually police the front and back of Portage Place. Once the drugs & loiterers move, finding a developer to build on top becomes a little more realistic. Residential and/or hotel preferably.

To be honest. Almost anything would be better than the current situation at Portage Place.

Bolded would be number one it getting rid of the unwashed/loitering/drug dealing crowd.

If you're not a shopper you really don't need to be in there.

[Tacheguy]

Originally Posted by optimusREIM

You'd think. They could also bundle such a project with some other to make it more efficient overall. Maybe another hotel at the forks or something.

Or one or two strategically located parkades. Kills two birds with one stone.

[rkspec]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

Bolded would be number one it getting rid of the unwashed/loitering/drug dealing crowd.

They can bath in the water park.

ziiiing!

[Tyler19944]

I think if Portage Place is going to go for a redesign it should close for a few years like the CORE in Calgary, completely gut it & reopen it as a high end destination. Put two new towers in over top of it & make it a real destination!

edit: Also, i'm watching old news reports of the Portage Place opening, and they said the building cost $80 million with plans for a full buildout of $300 million. Did the rest of the complex actually get built? Or did they settle for what was there?

[asher__jo]

I would break up the east and west blocks of portage place (if you look from google maps satellite view you can tell it's really two buildings joined where Edmonton street went). Sell off the West block for office space, keeping some retail and social services on the main floor. Keep a second floor skywalk, but reconnect Edmonton St to improve connection of streets. Hopefully that will increase the potential of building a small residential tower. The east building is a little more difficult, but there is a use of the food court as a gathering place.
Of course this is contingent on FNP selling the parkade, which I'm sure once Railside gets going they will.

[pegcityfan]

Originally Posted by EspionNoir

Is it because waterpark or a casino is not suitable for the location, or you think no one is willing to make it come true?

Both

[pegcityfan]

Originally Posted by EspionNoir

Is it because waterpark or a casino is not suitable for the location, or you think no one is willing to make it come true?

Both

The province has zero intention of ever allowing a casino in Downtown so zero chance (I've inquired through various alleys). They deflect by claiming Shark Club is a downtown casino .

I would think it would be much cheaper to build a waterpark from scratch then buying the mall and retrofitting the building, possibly expand it. It being downtown would just add to the costs. I'm no expert & have no clue.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by pegcityfan

Ideally:
Expand into that back parking to get rid of the daily drug festivals. Get rid of Food court or move it upstairs, turn space into front entrance & first floor spaces facing Portage into smaller store fronts (doors on Portage). Beg the city/Police to finally actually police the front and back of Portage Place. Once the drugs & loiterers move, finding a developer to build on top becomes a little more realistic. Residential and/or hotel preferably.

To be honest. Almost anything would be better than the current situation at Portage Place.

You might be onto something here...

But yeah, moving the food court needs to happen. It's just straight-up unsafe at this point.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by scryer

You might be onto something here...

But yeah, moving the food court needs to happen. It's just straight-up unsafe at this point.

The shenanigans out back and at the bus stops surrounding PP can be sketchy, but what is unsafe about the food court? I'm in there regularly and all I ever see is people eating and drinking as one would expect.

[cheswick]

Originally Posted by esquire

The shenanigans out back and at the bus stops surrounding PP can be sketchy, but what is unsafe about the food court? I'm in there regularly and all I ever see is people eating and drinking as one would expect.

Yeah I found that comment unusual as well. There are a lot of loiterers who buy a coffee from Tim’s and hang out for hours, but don’t see how it’s unsafe.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by cheswick

Yeah I found that comment unusual as well. There are a lot of loiterers who buy a coffee from Tim’s and hang out for hours, but don’t see how it’s unsafe.

Yup, pretty well every Tim's and Starbucks locations has people who do this... Portage Place is really no different.

[pspeid]

Originally Posted by cheswick

Yeah I found that comment unusual as well. There are a lot of loiterers who buy a coffee from Tim’s and hang out for hours, but don’t see how it’s unsafe.

That's always the problem with perception vs reality. I couldn't tell you the number of times, when travelling in Canada, people have said "I'm sorry" when I tell them I'm from Winnipeg. They are almost disappointed when I tell them Winnipeg is actually a great place to live and visit, and the crime they hear about is relatively localized.

It's the same with Portage Place. It's been branded as a hideous disaster with violent assaults happening every day and drug-addled fiends hanging in every doorway. The truth is, it's certainly dated and not the attraction it was when it opened, but it's not a wreck. It has certainly suffered from the extinction of one anchor store, Eaton's, and the huge reduction in services of The Bay.There have been some high-profile crimes, but there have also been crimes in "nice" places like Charleswood and Wolsley.

IMO Portage Place needs both a repurpose and architectural refit. I LOVE the idea posted of turning it into two buildings, with a second-floor skywalk connecting them! More visibility to the area behind it may also help with some of the crime problem behind the mall. It also desperately needs a more inviting and accessible Portage Ave facade. I know the store don't like having their door open to both Portage and the mall for various reasons, but the facade the way it is just says "keep out" to me. I wish they would move the facades they decorated the back of the mall with to the Portage Ave side.

I think it's already ben repurposing itself as mixed retail/office/service space. If the retail/entertainment area, and even the food court, is reduced to west of Edmonton Court, this could enhance the "feel" of an active and energetic retail space downtown. It might even spur development of office space on the east pad.

[Luisito]

Portage place used to be worse. I remember reading about people getting assaulted including a stabbing in the food court. It has improved quite a bit over the last ten years but it can still be pretty shitty, specially the bus stops and the back entrance. The back entrance has the ambiance of a crack house.

The only thing I would change about portage place is the back entrance. I would close it, and use that back area for more retail space.

[optimusREIM]

The problem is that the food court is sort of closed in and not very visible from a lot of angles. Maybe those units need to be moved to a more visible location and then shuffle some retail units into the vacant space. And provide street access. It would also help if we were incentivizing downtown living in the area hard, especially young professionals willing to spend a lot.

[EspionNoir]

Originally Posted by pspeid

That's always the problem with perception vs reality. I couldn't tell you the number of times, when travelling in Canada, people have said "I'm sorry" when I tell them I'm from Winnipeg. They are almost disappointed when I tell them Winnipeg is actually a great place to live and visit, and the crime they hear about is relatively localized.

It's the same with Portage Place. It's been branded as a hideous disaster with violent assaults happening every day and drug-addled fiends hanging in every doorway. The truth is, it's certainly dated and not the attraction it was when it opened, but it's not a wreck. It has certainly suffered from the extinction of one anchor store, Eaton's, and the huge reduction in services of The Bay.There have been some high-profile crimes, but there have also been crimes in "nice" places like Charleswood and Wolsley.

IMO Portage Place needs both a repurpose and architectural refit. I LOVE the idea posted of turning it into two buildings, with a second-floor skywalk connecting them! More visibility to the area behind it may also help with some of the crime problem behind the mall. It also desperately needs a more inviting and accessible Portage Ave facade. I know the store don't like having their door open to both Portage and the mall for various reasons, but the facade the way it is just says "keep out" to me. I wish they would move the facades they decorated the back of the mall with to the Portage Ave side.

I think it's already ben repurposing itself as mixed retail/office/service space. If the retail/entertainment area, and even the food court, is reduced to west of Edmonton Court, this could enhance the "feel" of an active and energetic retail space downtown. It might even spur development of office space on the east pad.

Lol. They really said “I’m sorry”? And really got disappointed? I think in that situation I’d be justified to feel offended.

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by pspeid

I couldn't tell you the number of times, when travelling in Canada, people have said "I'm sorry" when I tell them I'm from Winnipeg.

Happens to me a lot too.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by scryer

But yeah, moving the food court needs to happen. It's just straight-up unsafe at this point.

The biggest issue with the Portage Place food court is that security needs to actively work to minimize loitering and outside food. One evening I had stopped there for something and noticed one of the other tables basically brought a picnic from home and appeared to be setting up to use the food court as a meeting place for the evening.

A good example to follow is City Place. It is about three blocks away and a word of difference. It isn't so much actively chasing people out but being a bit of a visible presence and telling people this isn't a free community space to hang out for extended periods.

Originally Posted by esquire

Yup, pretty well every Tim's and Starbucks locations has people who do this... Portage Place is really no different.

What is different between a suburban Starbucks and the Portage Place food court is the Starbucks the loitering people are usually young, somewhat attractive, almost always female and mostly white. The food court is much more ethnically diverse, appears to be lots of more recent immigrants and they might be speaking languages that are not English. The general perception on Portage Place in general has a bit of racism underneath the surface.


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In terms of relatively quick fix solutions for Portage Place? Start with taking a page from the St James Costco. Hire off duty police officers to have an active and visible presence in the open market street drug market out back. Just the visible presence alone will likely be enough to "encourage" those people to move on. Establish a visible presence for security in the food court and start asking people to move on. If the problem still persists do a "renovation" to more of a single patron seating (bar style) instead of tables. Also consider hiring a social worker to work with people frequenting the food court similar to what is being done at the Millennium Library. Do a full on reno to remove the food court bus shelter and work with transit to eliminate that stop completely. Also close the bus shelter over on Vaghaun.

Portage Place may also want to engage Downtown Watch, WPS and the Air Canada Building/APTN to coordinate their efforts, re the drug market, to proactively take steps to ensure it doesn't relocate to the park at Carlton and Portage Ave.

It is never going to be too great a shopping destination but it could at least achieve a similar presence to City Place and Winnipeg Square.

[BubberMiley]

Originally Posted by CoryB

In terms of relatively quick fix solutions for Portage Place? Start with taking a page from the St James Costco. Hire off duty police officers to have an active and visible presence in the open market street drug market out back.

There were drug dealers at the St. James Costco?