Posted Mar 12, 2024, 5:46 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba
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Pantages Theatre
This article was published on Aug. 11, 2023
Quote:
Pantages development in limbo, but new owner says he’s committed to amorphous project
Although the sale of the Pantages Playhouse Theatre began in 2019, Winnipeggers will need to wait to find out what a new development of the site will bring.
The historic theatre on Market Avenue at Main Street hosted its last performance in December 2018. A new development is on the way, with a related plan to preserve the performance space, but construction has yet to begin.
In 2019, city council approved a plan to sell the property for $530,000 to Alex Boersma and Lars Nicholson, who planned to create a mixed-use property with some housing that left the theatre space intact.
However, the sale took years to complete, including an extensive subdivision process that allows the city to own and maintain a streetcar sculpture at the site that commemorates the General Strike of 1919.
The complexity of that deal played a key role in preventing the new owners from taking possession of the property until 2022, Boersma told the Free Press this week.
“It just took quite a bit longer to do that process than we anticipated,” he said.
Boersma said it’s not clear when a design for the new mixed-use development could be completed or exactly what it will include. He said he remains committed to the project but is open to creative ideas on what type of construction is best suited to the location.
“It’s a really important intersection and (a) sort of gateway (to) downtown… so to me, it’s important that we do something that will stand the test of time and add to the fabric of the neighbourhood.”
The theatre, constructed in 1913-14, is protected against demolition through a national heritage designation.
Economic conditions have changed since the initial purchase plan was approved by the city, which is also affecting the timing of construction, said Boersma.
“It’s basically an economic decision at this point. Since COVID, the downtown-Exchange area has changed quite a bit and there’s also a lot of other really nice developments that are… about to be completed. So, it just didn’t seem to be a prudent thing to add another one to the area right now,” he said.
In an email, city spokesman Kalen Qually said conditions of the sale do not require construction to begin by any particular date.
In 2020, the owners reached an agreement to sell the theatre space at the property for $1 to the Performing Arts Consortium of Winnipeg, which planned to operate the theatre and raise $10 million to $15 million to restore it.
During a July 13, 2020 property and development committee meeting at city hall, a member of the consortium described the plan as a great way to preserve and utilize the building.
“We have an excellent agreement… that preserves and protects the theatre in its entirety…. We commit to the restoration and management of the theatre. We will take ownership of it and we will restore it and we will put the proper management in place to manage it as a community-based theatre and home of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra,” Ross McGowan told the committee.
Members of the consortium could not be reached for comment Friday.
Boersma said the $1 theatre sale to the consortium is now complete and he believes the group remains “extremely committed” to carrying out its plan.
Coun. Sherri Rollins said changing building conditions are affecting numerous projects downtown.
“(With) the economic downtown, the supply-chain issues, the complexities for construction have been multiple,” said Rollins, council’s property and development chairwoman.
Greg Agnew, president of Heritage Winnipeg, said the building in the heart of the Exchange District has significant historic value.
“It was one of the first theatres to actually get out from (a previous) dark, dingy box (style) and getting into the theatres that were opulent,” said Agnew.
The 109-year-old theatre opened in February 1914. The city acquired it through a tax sale in 1944.
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Winnipeg Free Press
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