Quote:
Originally Posted by wardlow
The change in tenant (and possibly the use?) will be an interesting test of how the crumbling barricade-concourse system operates. It's easy to support the status quo when the four corners are anchored by tenants who've been there forever. But it will be interesting to see what new tenants are going to be interested in a property that is simultaneously perhaps Western Canada's most grand commercial buildings *and* accessed by either literally crumbling stairs or a darkened, smelly rape corridor.
More generally, I don't get why BMO would in 2019 (not, say, 1959) move out of such a signature building that has been their emblem to Winnipeggers for 107 years. But then again I don't work in finance. All that said, I also don't get the whole grim end-of-an-era thing about it. The closing of the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange last year was an actual sad end of something: the end of 131 years of trading Western Canadian agricultural commodities in the city. But of course the WCE wasn't in a heritage building by that time, so no one really cared.
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Excellent points. Unless I missed some earlier announcements, the position of the four main stakeholders on opening P & M really was't publicly shared until the recent non-binding plebiscite. With the "no" vote I'm sure many people felt the status quo would just be maintained indefinitely at P & M. With BMO moving out of their signature building, and the uncertainty of what a different (private) tenant would be willing to accept for access to their building, I am
hoping we could see some real movement on opening the corner.