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  #261  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 1:31 PM
Tacheguy Tacheguy is offline
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Originally Posted by BigG View Post
^^This is absolutely true. TV is right, we do things differently. Of course, I'd like to see more new towers, but glass towers does not a city make.
those glass towers in calgary are half empty. and it is going to get much worse. look nice though..
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  #262  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 1:39 PM
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If anyone is concerned about forum moderation, PM the moderator and ask him to moderate.
We have a moderator?
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  #263  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 2:17 PM
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Personally I'd say downtown Winnipeg is progressing. Unfortunately, downtown initiatives have still been mostly top-down (government-driven projects). In a successful downtown, these should be a side dish to bottom-up (market driven) projects. In Winnipeg over the past 50 years, the government driven stuff has been the main course.

Over the last 10-15 years we've been seeing more small scale private sector development, and let's not forget that a large part of that activity in Winnipeg has involved the renovation of old buildings in the Exchange District and surrounding area. So when a bunch of businesses need space in Winnipeg, it might mean few old buildings get renovated while in Calgary it results in a new 20 storey building.

The bottom line is I'd like to see things improve at a quicker pace, but there has certainly been progress over the last 20 years. Anyone who remembers the moribund state of downtown Winnipeg in the late 90s will see that in spite of some changes for the worse (the almost total extinction of downtown as a major retail hub, for example), things have gotten better on the whole.
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  #264  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 3:37 PM
Simplicity Simplicity is offline
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Urban recluse sounds a lot like simplicity.....jus sayin
Uh, I'm right here. 'Jus sayin' says the guy who can't recognize and differentiate writing styles. Good detective work.

It speaks to the hive mind around here that anybody who takes a realistic view of Winnipeg development could only possibly be one person. Surely everybody has the same fundamentally uneducated viewpoint that's shared by the lion's share of this board.

Anyway, I'm not really that interested in commenting around here. It's tough to keep up with some of the geniuses like Ando and DonaldSmith who bring their intellect and relevant discussion points every day. And Bluenote and the Unknown Poster? Who can say enough about the erudite nature of their anti-intellectual populist spirit who would never let a confusing topic stop them from braying loudly in opposition to something they can't understand. And Pinus? This board got its whiny urban-cyclist wings when he stepped aboard.

So all of the bases are covered. Those guys alone will have you all in good stead. I imagine the compelling posts filled with relevant and topical information will be coming in spades now.
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  #265  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 4:13 PM
rkspec rkspec is offline
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Originally Posted by Simplicity View Post
Uh, I'm right here. 'Jus sayin' says the guy who can't recognize and differentiate writing styles. Good detective work.
but the writing styles are the same, with a join date of oct 2015 (yesterday) and 9 posts already, thats why i said it

anyhow, i dont want to feel the wrath of Simplicity as i am 'just an ordinary joe' who is in the health care field and does not have much to offer to this forum but random questions and the odd relevant link i see on the net.
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  #266  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 5:33 PM
Urban recluse Urban recluse is offline
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seems the difference is you think office towers are the only measure of change....great cities can be built without glass towers.

more than 2000 residential units have been built downtown winnipeg in the last five years...the downtown population has grown by 50% and is now larger than it has ever been in history....four residential towers are under construction right now....there are a dozen new buildings on waterfront drive, the CMHR, convention centre, ALT/STANTEC, Red River College Princess Campus, Union Tower Campus, A massive expansion of the U of W. warehouse conversions into high end lofts in too many buildings to list. Avenue Building, Buhler building, APTN, Central Park, MTS Centre and Eaton's Powerhouse, the MET theatre...new field house under construction at the redeveloped home of Sport manitoba.....never mind the biggest building in the city, Manitoba Hydro.

The exchange district is a completely different place from ten years ago....thousands of new residents, dozens of new restaurants, shops, offices...

If you can't see huge change in downtown, you are not looking.

The 2000 units built in the last 5 years and the 1000 more under construction is equal to 19 twenty storey towers...we just do it differently here.

I know you are just trolling, but your claims are baseless.
I assure you I am not "trolling". Much of what has occurred downtown has been government-funded. Do you not find it interesting that even with all of the new residents, there is still no grocery store downtown, while downtown Hamilton has one? The lack of private investment in downtown Winnipeg is worth being the topic of a university thesis. My point is that what you and I consider renewal differs. I can appreciate the projects you cited, but what we do not seem to see much of is wholesale change. An example would be the Bag Lofts. A wonderful project it may be, but nothing else around it is being redeveloped. New sidewalks and a repaved Alexander Ave would go a long way in improving the aesthetics of the area. 242 Princess is a blight, old bag Werier will not clean her building, and there are too many empty lots and underutilized buildings such as 206 to 216 Princess.

"2000 units built in the last five years"? You mean ten years. "50%" growth downtown? You mean 15%. And I am not sure what calculations you used to get 19 twenty storey towers

Last edited by Urban recluse; Oct 27, 2015 at 6:06 PM.
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  #267  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 5:34 PM
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Originally Posted by Simplicity View Post
Uh, I'm right here. 'Jus sayin' says the guy who can't recognize and differentiate writing styles. Good detective work.

It speaks to the hive mind around here that anybody who takes a realistic view of Winnipeg development could only possibly be one person. Surely everybody has the same fundamentally uneducated viewpoint that's shared by the lion's share of this board.

Anyway, I'm not really that interested in commenting around here. It's tough to keep up with some of the geniuses like Ando and DonaldSmith who bring their intellect and relevant discussion points every day. And Bluenote and the Unknown Poster? Who can say enough about the erudite nature of their anti-intellectual populist spirit who would never let a confusing topic stop them from braying loudly in opposition to something they can't understand. And Pinus? This board got its whiny urban-cyclist wings when he stepped aboard.

So all of the bases are covered. Those guys alone will have you all in good stead. I imagine the compelling posts filled with relevant and topical information will be coming in spades now.
I appreciate your comments.
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  #268  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 6:16 PM
Ando Ando is offline
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Originally Posted by trueviking View Post
seems the difference is you think office towers are the only measure of change....great cities can be built without glass towers.

more than 2000 residential units have been built downtown winnipeg in the last five years...the downtown population has grown by 50% and is now larger than it has ever been in history....four residential towers are under construction right now....there are a dozen new buildings on waterfront drive, the CMHR, convention centre, ALT/STANTEC, Red River College Princess Campus, Union Tower Campus, A massive expansion of the U of W. warehouse conversions into high end lofts in too many buildings to list. Avenue Building, Buhler building, APTN, Central Park, MTS Centre and Eaton's Powerhouse, the MET theatre...new field house under construction at the redeveloped home of Sport manitoba.....never mind the biggest building in the city, Manitoba Hydro.

The exchange district is a completely different place from ten years ago....thousands of new residents, dozens of new restaurants, shops, offices...

If you can't see huge change in downtown, you are not looking.

The 2000 units built in the last 5 years and the 1000 more under construction is equal to 19 twenty storey towers...we just do it differently here.

I know you are just trolling, but your claims are baseless.
Here! Here! Well said.
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  #269  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 6:31 PM
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Originally Posted by Urban recluse View Post
Do you not find it interesting that even with all of the new residents, there is still no grocery store downtown, while downtown Hamilton has one?
For the record, there is a full service grocery store at 120 Donald Street. Not sure why everyone pretends it doesn't exist, but it's there.

I still went out to Extra Foods or Superstore from time to time to stock up on certain items, but when I lived downtown it was my main source for everyday groceries. There are other places downtown too like GT, Tutti Frutti and Sun Wah. So there are definitely places to buy groceries.
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  #270  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 7:50 PM
Tacheguy Tacheguy is offline
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Originally Posted by esquire View Post
For the record, there is a full service grocery store at 120 Donald Street. Not sure why everyone pretends it doesn't exist, but it's there.

I still went out to Extra Foods or Superstore from time to time to stock up on certain items, but when I lived downtown it was my main source for everyday groceries. There are other places downtown too like GT, Tutti Frutti and Sun Wah. So there are definitely places to buy groceries.
That place on Donald is fine. I used to go there all the time when I lived downtown. I guess people are looking for something accessible from the walkway system.?
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  #271  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 7:54 PM
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^ Fair enough re: the walkway system, but I'm not sure how that became the holy grail considering that only a very small portion of the downtown residential population is located on (or even near) the skywalks.
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  #272  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 8:12 PM
steveosnyder steveosnyder is offline
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Originally Posted by trueviking View Post
more than 2000 residential units have been built downtown winnipeg in the last five years...the downtown population has grown by 50% and is now larger than it has ever been in history....four residential towers are under construction right now....there are a dozen new buildings on waterfront drive, the CMHR, convention centre, ALT/STANTEC, Red River College Princess Campus, Union Tower Campus, A massive expansion of the U of W. warehouse conversions into high end lofts in too many buildings to list. Avenue Building, Buhler building, APTN, Central Park, MTS Centre and Eaton's Powerhouse, the MET theatre...new field house under construction at the redeveloped home of Sport manitoba.....never mind the biggest building in the city, Manitoba Hydro.
I like the list, and love downtown, but I'm not blind to see that most if not all these buildings are completely or heavily subsidized institutions: RRC/Union Tower, UW, CMHR, APTN, Central Park, Sport MB, MB Hydro, Convention Centre... I'm not saying these building are bad, but each one was sold that it would bring investment into downtown (much like Portage Place was), but I haven't seen all that much private money. When is this balance of ours suppose to tip?
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  #273  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 8:30 PM
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^ Is the only argument for those projects the idea that it is supposed to trigger further private investment, though? I'd say that many government funded projects are worth it completely on their own, including all of the ones that you listed. Many educational, cultural, administrative and other such buildings are probably going to get built anyway, might as well put it downtown.

The only one that really stands out as a notoriously costly white elephant is Portage Place, which attempted to carry out functions that should be the domain of the private sector. But I don't think we'll see something like that again in our lifetimes.
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  #274  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 8:52 PM
steveosnyder steveosnyder is offline
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Originally Posted by esquire View Post
^ Is the only argument for those projects the idea that it is supposed to trigger further private investment, though? I'd say that many government funded projects are worth it completely on their own, including all of the ones that you listed. Many educational, cultural, administrative and other such buildings are probably going to get built anyway, might as well put it downtown.

The only one that really stands out as a notoriously costly white elephant is Portage Place, which attempted to carry out functions that should be the domain of the private sector. But I don't think we'll see something like that again in our lifetimes.
I agree some of them are for the 'greater good' like education, but I think that every project the government invests in should be looked at in real numbers. This is also why I have a distaste for most street projects; if the return isn't at least equal to the project cost then the money needs to come from somewhere (hint: it's taxes)... Seeing as we are already in such a huge infrastructure deficit I think our government spending should be more focused on "what does this do to our bottom line" not "will this project get me re-elected."

EDIT: one of the guys on the winnipeg reddit subforum equated it (and I think I have done the same) to the difference between consumer and investment debt. Borrowing money for education -- something that increases your earning potential -- is good, borrowing money for a TV? Not good. We need to stop thinking of some of these projects as investments; they are just really big TV's with no return potential.
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  #275  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 10:05 PM
Tacheguy Tacheguy is offline
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government offices should be located downtown, except in rare circumstances. they are locationally footloose, and many of the employees there end up considering moving downtown to be close to the office. i would bett that a good number of the purchasers of units in the Sky project are public servants working downtown. so it is more nuanced than private versus public.

one of my pet peeves about the Filmon government is that their very first act when elected was to move jobs from downtown winnipeg to rural areas. no clue or interest in downtown renewal. it scares me about Pallister to this day, although the party mindset may have changed since then.
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  #276  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 10:09 PM
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Originally Posted by steveosnyder View Post
EDIT: one of the guys on the winnipeg reddit subforum equated it (and I think I have done the same) to the difference between consumer and investment debt. Borrowing money for education -- something that increases your earning potential -- is good, borrowing money for a TV? Not good. We need to stop thinking of some of these projects as investments; they are just really big TV's with no return potential.
Great point. Except instead I would substitute "TV" for "snowmobile". Nothing depreciates faster than a snowmobile.
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  #277  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 10:10 PM
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Originally Posted by Tacheguy View Post
those glass towers in calgary are half empty. and it is going to get much worse. look nice though..
Yes it will get worse. And then it will get better.
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  #278  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 10:18 PM
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Originally Posted by Tacheguy View Post
one of my pet peeves about the Filmon government is that their very first act when elected was to move jobs from downtown winnipeg to rural areas. no clue or interest in downtown renewal.
The downtowns of other Winnipeg cities don't count? No-one is supposed to have any interest in downtown renewal there?

BTW, smaller cities don't count as "rural."
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  #279  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 10:24 PM
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Originally Posted by Tacheguy View Post
government offices should be located downtown, except in rare circumstances.
Why? So everyone that visits a government office for services has to be inconvinenced by having to drive downtown?
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  #280  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2015, 10:35 PM
Tacheguy Tacheguy is offline
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Why? So everyone that visits a government office for services has to be inconvinenced by having to drive downtown?
Far better to have to take a bus from Transcona to Charleswood
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