WINNIPEG | Portage Place Redevelopment

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by WinCitySparky

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...lure-1.6729207

The failure of Portage Place is in no way unique to Winnipeg.

Also, in Hamilton, they are about to tear down their own version of Portage Place and replace it with a proper mixed use setup.

https://www.thepublicrecord.ca/2020/...-street-north/

Would be great if they actually tore down portage place.

[pspeid]

Originally Posted by Luisito

Would be great if they actually torn down portage place.

I would agree if they had a building or buildings that would be suitable for the street planned and financed. I would be happy with something like the Starlight proposal if anyone else could raise the $$ to do it.

From CBC today, Calgary also has some problems with past retail projects:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...lure-1.6729207

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by pspeid

I would agree if they had a building or buildings that would be suitable for the street planned and financed. I would be happy with something like the Starlight proposal if anyone else could raise the $$ to do it.

From CBC today, Calgary also has some problems with past retail projects:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...lure-1.6729207

I agree there needs to be something planned for that location. Personally I would like to see office towers with street level retail at that location. I know that is just a pipe dream.

[WinCitySparky]

Office towers are dead in this city. Mixed use is going to be the only vertical construction happening in the decade ahead. Like someone in another thread said, we need focus less on transient downtown populations like office workers and “Jets fans” and focus more instead on long term establishment of downtown residential presence.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Luisito

Would be great if they actually tore down portage place.

Portage Place by far beats the most likely alternative if it were to be demolished, i.e. surface parking lots.

[GreyGarden]

I’d love to see something like that Hamilton proposal for Portage Place, but let’s be real, Hamilton is about to absolutely take off in terms of population and prosperity. I have very little doubt that the development will come to fruition more or less. There are so many lots in winnipeg and no one is building anything. So tearing down a giant mall and creating a market-lands 2.0 will result in a giant lot for a decade.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by GreyGarden

I’d love to see something like that Hamilton proposal for Portage Place, but let’s be real, Hamilton is about to absolutely take off in terms of population and prosperity. I have very little doubt that the development will come to fruition more or less. There are so many lots in winnipeg and no one is building anything. So tearing down a giant mall and creating a market-lands 2.0 will result in a giant lot for a decade.

Only a decade? You are an optimist!

Hamilton is only an hour away from Toronto and benefits from that greatly... they are likely getting spillover from people interested in a downtown lifestyle but can't afford inflated Toronto prices. Even if it's just a few hundred people a year, when combined with demand within Hamilton itself, then that's enough to get some towers going. Winnipeg doesn't have that added spark.

[Luisito]

Speaking of market lands what happened to that project??

[pegcityboy]

Another factor will be with CF Polo Park Development , Railside and finally Kapyong that’s lots of new Apartments/ Condos coming on board for any city to absorb without affecting downtown redevelopment in terms of competition and location will be challenging but not impossible if done properly

[thebasketballgeek]

Originally Posted by GreyGarden

I’d love to see something like that Hamilton proposal for Portage Place, but let’s be real, Hamilton is about to absolutely take off in terms of population and prosperity. I have very little doubt that the development will come to fruition more or less. There are so many lots in winnipeg and no one is building anything. So tearing down a giant mall and creating a market-lands 2.0 will result in a giant lot for a decade.

I’ve heard that for a decade now and yet Winnipeg is still growing at a faster rate and the gap is further widening.

I think we’re underestimating how much growth this city receives on a yearly basis. The CMHC report of Winnipeg showed that vacancy rates got cut in half this year because we aren’t building enough to accommodate this growth. Somethings gotta give.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by GreyGarden

I’d love to see something like that Hamilton proposal for Portage Place, but let’s be real, Hamilton is about to absolutely take off in terms of population and prosperity. I have very little doubt that the development will come to fruition more or less. There are so many lots in winnipeg and no one is building anything. So tearing down a giant mall and creating a market-lands 2.0 will result in a giant lot for a decade.

Hamilton is not going to "take off into population and prosperity." Hamilton has had mediocre growth over the past 40 years. In fact, for the last 15 years, Winnipeg has surpassed Hamilton in growth. If Hamilton was going to "take off in growth," it would have happened decades ago.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by esquire

Only a decade? You are an optimist!

Hamilton is only an hour away from Toronto and benefits from that greatly... they are likely getting spillover from people interested in a downtown lifestyle but can't afford inflated Toronto prices. Even if it's just a few hundred people a year, when combined with demand within Hamilton itself, then that's enough to get some towers going. Winnipeg doesn't have that added spark.

That is only if we are talking about the Hamilton CMA. The City of Hamilton has been stagnant in population growth for decades. All the growth seems to be happening in the large suburb of Burlington, which is much closer to the GTA, and separated with Hamilton by the harbour.

The benefits of being in close proximity to Toronto are somewhat exaggerated. It's too far of a distance away. Realistically, any new towers are far more likely going to be built in Burlington, Oshawa, Mississauga, or Oakville.

[GreyGarden]

The quantity and quality of urban city development in Hamilton seems to be far exceeding inner city Winnipeg. I understand that part of the answer is cost of construction and developer expertise, but there seems to be a lot more money to be made on urban development there compared to Winnipeg. Our growth seems to be very limited to SFHs in the far suburbs.

I could be totally wrong about the growth rates though. My understanding was that people were starting to pour into Hamilton due to the prices of Toronto and its suburbs.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek

I’ve heard that for a decade now and yet Winnipeg is still growing at a faster rate and the gap is further widening.

I think we’re underestimating how much growth this city receives on a yearly basis. The CMHC report of Winnipeg showed that vacancy rates got cut in half this year because we aren’t building enough to accommodate this growth. Somethings gotta give.

Winnipeg is growing. But precious little of it is occurring downtown or even in the inner city area.

Growth in Winnipeg manifests itself mainly in things like Sage Creek SFHs and Bridgwater groundscrapers.

[Luisito]

One thing I noticed from seeing pics of Hamilton on this forum is that their skyline is lackluster compared to ours. I think the Winnipeg skyline is much nicer and bigger.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by GreyGarden

The quantity and quality of urban city development in Hamilton seems to be far exceeding inner city Winnipeg. I understand that part of the answer is cost of construction and developer expertise, but there seems to be a lot more money to be made on urban development there compared to Winnipeg. Our growth seems to be very limited to SFHs in the far suburbs.

I could be totally wrong about the growth rates though. My understanding was that people were starting to pour into Hamilton due to the prices of Toronto and its suburbs.

Do you have any proof to substantiate you claim?

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by Luisito

One thing I noticed from seeing pics of Hamilton on this forum is that their skyline is lackluster compared to ours. I think the Winnipeg skyline is much nicer and bigger.

It's odd that people point to Hamilton, a city with roughly the same population in the metro area, as a "booming in growth and prosperity, compared to Winnipeg," then move the goalposts when it turns out that their statements are not accurate.

Now the claim seems to be "well their downtown is better and more vibrant than that of Winnipeg." What is with all the misinformation? I've been to Downtown Edmonton, with a metro area almost twice the size of Winnipeg, and their downtown is just as dead, if not worse than Winnipeg.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

Now the claim seems to be "well their downtown is better and more vibrant than that of Winnipeg." What is with all the misinformation? I've been to Downtown Edmonton, with a metro area almost twice the size of Winnipeg, and their downtown is just as dead, if not worse than Winnipeg.

You're probably right in that downtown Edmonton, being the core of a city nearly twice as big as Winnipeg and more prosperous to boot, is a lot less than you would expect. But how is that supposed to make any Winnipegger feel better about the state of affairs here? "Things are bad here, but at least Edmonton sucks too..." That's pretty cold comfort.

A generation ago, Canadian downtowns were still a point of pride. But now they seem to be, for the most part, in varying degrees of crisis. This is a perplexing problem for a supposedly advanced, highly industrialized G7 country.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by esquire

You're probably right in that downtown Edmonton, being the core of a city nearly twice as big as Winnipeg and more prosperous to boot, is a lot less than you would expect. But how is that supposed to make any Winnipegger feel better about the state of affairs here? "Things are bad here, but at least Edmonton sucks too..." That's pretty cold comfort.

A generation ago, Canadian downtowns were still a point of pride. But now they seem to be, for the most part, in varying degrees of crisis. This is a perplexing problem for a supposedly advanced, highly industrialized G7 country.

I am responding to the Hamilton comparisons. Especially the claim that Hamilton city and their downtown is somehow "superior" and will be booming and vibrant compared to Winnipeg, in spite of Winnipeg growing at a faster pace than Hamilton for the past 10 years, as well as a fair bit of activity in the city centre.

It's almost as ridiculous as the claim that Quebec City and Winnipeg had an "equal amount of homicides" in the 90s, only for Winnipeg to get much worse, while Quebec City is now one of the safest cities in Canada. This is an outright lie, as Quebec City has never came remotely close to Winnipeg in terms of our homicide rate.

Having said that, Downtown Calgary is actually pretty decent. They have constructed many residential high rise buildings in the west downtown. The Beltline has a large population density. I'm sure Toronto and Vancouver are even better.

[GreyGarden]

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

Do you have any proof to substantiate you claim?

I’m just relying on Skyscraperpage’s development map and city database. I know they don’t get updated all the time but they at least give you a sense of the number of proposals and developments underway in a given city and their locations. For example, a lot of midrise developments aren’t included in these. They’re pretty limited to buildings over 8-10 storeys. But anecdotally, when you walk around inner city Hamilton you’ll see a lot more cranes in the sky and development underway.

Regarding quality, I suppose that is a bit more subjective, but I’m finding that Hamilton’s developments are utilizing higher quality materials and have overall better built form - more urban. On the topic of quality, I’ll say that Wawanesa tower looks terrific and I’m very hopeful for 300 Saint Mary. On quality, I’m just going off my own tastes and observations - not very scientific.

Anyways, we’ve gotten sidetracked. To bring it back to this thread, a proposal like the Hamilton one would be really exciting, but I’d be really worried about ending up with a giant empty lot. I think a renovation and expansion (like the failed proposal for PP) is less risky.