Winnipeg Construction XI

[drew]

In my observations walking to and from work, there has been a noticeable increase in pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks along Portage since the buses were re-routed. This would be the non-zombie type pedestrian I am referring to.

Also, the Main Street sketch doesn't really hit until City Hall and points North. People begging or asking for money is so ubiquitous downtown, it doesn't even register for me anymore.

[Luisito]

Drove through Chinatown earlier, noticed something is being built where the old Shanghai building used to be. Anyone know what's going up there?? What ever it is I hope it means a revival of Chinatown.

[BAKGUY]

Originally Posted by Luisito

Drove through Chinatown earlier, noticed something is being built where the old Shanghai building used to be. Anyone know what's going up there?? What ever it is I hope it means a revival of Chinatown.

Shanghai Residence is located at the former site of the Shanghai Restaurant at 232 King St., which has sat vacant for more than a decade 7 Floors. designed by Ray Wan

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by BAKGUY

Shanghai Residence is located at the former site of the Shanghai Restaurant at 232 King St., which has sat vacant for more than a decade 7 Floors. designed by Ray Wan

It's going to be residential? Interesting......I wonder if they will have commercial space at street level?

Thanks for the reply.

[Wpg_Guy]

Originally Posted by Luisito

Drove through Chinatown earlier, noticed something is being built where the old Shanghai building used to be. Anyone know what's going up there?? What ever it is I hope it means a revival of Chinatown.

Check page one of this thread for development updates.

Originally Posted by Wpg_Guy

Shanghai Tower
Location: 232 King Street
Developers: Winnipeg Chinatown Development Corporation
Architect: Raymond S.C. Wan Architect
Status: Development Permit
Documents: VARIANCE: 24-277953/B - January 20, 2025
Media: -
Description: The proposed development at King Street, between Pacific and Alexander Avenues in the heart of Chinatown, is a 7-storey, 54-unit multi-family and multi-use building. It features a daycare space, 14 affordable units, and 15 units that are rent geared to income. An accessory parking area with loading spaces, accessible parking, and 13 small car spaces is located under the building and screened by active ground floor uses, including the daycare and a multi-purpose room along King Street. Approximately half of the frontage on Pacific and Alexander Avenues is occupied by the building, with the remaining portion of Alexander Avenue designated for a private plaza and Pacific Avenue featuring a fenced daycare play area. This development is a recipient of the Housing Accelerator Fund Capital Grant Incentive.
Permits: #25-110256 DP-2025-04-01, Permit. Development Permit Application for a proposed 57,081 sq. ft. seven-storey 54-unit multi-family dwelling, including a 1,464 sq. ft. Daycare Use and a multi-purpose room on the main floor.

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by Wpg_Guy

Check page one of this thread for development updates.

Thank you for the reply Wpg_guy.

[trueviking]

I sure miss the Shanghai. 131c.

[Sheepish]

I sure miss the Nanking!

[James Bond Agent 007]

Good god, I hope they don't overturn this:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...ment-9.6996681

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

Good god, I hope they don't overturn this:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...ment-9.6996681

It is really expensive and pretty obtrusive.

Seems weird to require it on big streets and downtown. My guess is there are far fewer birds there than in neighbourhoods.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by trueviking

It is really expensive and pretty obtrusive.

Seems weird to require it on big streets and downtown. My guess is there are far fewer birds there than in neighbourhoods.

Not all of them are intrusive, it depends on the pattern you use.

I put some on one of my kitchen windows several years ago and they absolutely work. It's even one of the more intrusive patterns but it's not really that bad.

And no it's not that expensive. And even if it was, it would be worth it. In the US, window collisions kill a billion birds a year.

A Simple Window Treatment Drastically Cuts Bird Collisions at a Chicago Landmark

On a warm morning this past October, Dave Willard, the re­tired bird collections manager for Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, walked briskly along a glassy façade on the Lake Michigan shoreline looking for fallen birds. The building made of glass is McCormick Place, the convention center infamous to birders as the place where nearly 1,000 migrating birds met their deaths on Oct. 5, 2023.

Willard has taken walks like this on nearly every morning during migration seasons for the last 40 years, document­ing birds that crash into the building’s windows. He typically collects nearly 1,000 dead birds at McCormick Place over the course of a year, with most mortalities coming during fall migra­tion. This past autumn, however, Wil­lard says he found only 48 dead birds.

The difference appears to be the tiny white circles spaced every two inches along the entirety of McCormick Place’s 120,000 square feet of glassy surface. The markers were applied as part of a $1.2 million project last summer con­ducted by the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which owns and operates McCormick Place, to avoid another avian catastrophe.

[Hecate]

Yea overturning this is dumb.

You’d think designers would be advocating for design that creates better spaces for all species. We have to coexist.

Nobody likes cleaning up dead birds.

[trueviking]

if most of the birds are hitting houses, and we really care about birds, shouldn't the priority be to get houseowners to add dots to all of their windows? Maybe make it a bylaw for new houses and an awareness/incentive program for existing?

I don't really see the advantage of adding yet another financial barrier to multi-family housing development.....

do we really want to look through all of our windows with dots all over them?

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by trueviking

if most of the birds are hitting houses, and we really care about birds, shouldn't the priority be to get houseowners to add dots to all of their windows? Maybe make it a bylaw for new houses and an awareness/incentive program for existing?

I don't really see the advantage of adding yet another financial barrier to multi-family housing development.....

do we really want to look through all of our windows with dots all over them?

I have a bird screen over my kitchen window, and it's not that big a deal. In fact it's kinda neat because I can look out my window at my bird feeders (which are just feet away from the window) without scaring the birds away, because they can't really see through the screen.

A minor inconvenience in looking out your window is a more than reasonable sacrifice to save the lives of thousands of birds.

When I first moved into my current house I regularly got birds slamming into my kitchen window. Some of them were pretty loud. THUD!! I had to give a couple of them mercy killings. The last straw was when a hummingbird hit the window very hard, and I rushed outside and there was a hummingbird on my patio beneath the window frantically flapping its wings clearly in great pain. I grabbed a shovel and gave it a mercy killing.

I then Googled "birds hitting window" and came across this:
https://www.collidescape.org/
You can order it online, give them the dimensions of your window and they send it to you custom cut in a roll.

I believe these regulations focus on commercial buildings because they tend to have large window areas and affect birds disproportionately (see previously posted article about the Chicago Convention Center). I agree a lot of houses should also probably have them installed, especially since so many houses these days have large windows, but for the time being that's probably more of a public education issue.

When I was in Winnipeg in August I saw a dead bird that had hit a window at the airport. Was very sad. Buildings like that are absolutely the type they should put window treatings over.

Your perfectly unobstructed view out your window is not more important than the lives of millions of birds.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I have a bird screen over my kitchen window, and it's not that big a deal. In fact it's kinda neat because I can look out my window at my bird feeders (which are just feet away from the window) without scaring the birds away, because they can't really see through the screen.

A minor inconvenience in looking out your window is a more than reasonable sacrifice to save the lives of thousands of birds.

When I first moved into my current house I regularly got birds slamming into my kitchen window. Some of them were pretty loud. THUD!! I had to give a couple of them mercy killings. The last straw was when a hummingbird hit the window very hard, and I rushed outside and there was a hummingbird on my patio beneath the window frantically flapping its wings clearly in great pain. I grabbed a shovel and gave it a mercy killing.

I then Googled "birds hitting window" and came across this:
https://www.collidescape.org/
You can order it online, give them the dimensions of your window and they send it to you custom cut in a roll.

I believe these regulations focus on commercial buildings because they tend to have large window areas and affect birds disproportionately (see previously posted article about the Chicago Convention Center). I agree a lot of houses should also probably have them installed, especially since so many houses these days have large windows, but for the time being that's probably more of a public education issue.

When I was in Winnipeg in August I saw a dead bird that had hit a window at the airport. Was very sad. Buildings like that are absolutely the type they should put window treatings over.

Your perfectly unobstructed view out your window is not more important than the lives of millions of birds.

to be clear....it's the unobstructed view of hundreds of millions of people affecting that many birds....i actually think if we covered all our windows with opaque dots, people would react pretty negatively. I've been in buildings with bird glass and its distracting.

the article says that the majority of birds are hitting houses....which makes sense since they are surrounded by grass and trees....should focus on houses.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by trueviking

to be clear....it's the unobstructed view of hundreds of millions of people affecting that many birds....i actually think if we covered all our windows with opaque dots, people would react pretty negatively. I've been in buildings with bird glass and its distracting.

Again, your distraction is not more important than the lives of millions of birds.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

Again, your distraction is not more important than the lives of millions of birds.

I can make the same type of blanket argument. Housing is a human right. We can’t be adding impediments to its construction and affordability to save some birds.

[bomberjet]

The sparrows slam into my front window, and less extent my back kitchen window, every spring. For the most part they fly away after some time.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

The sparrows slam into my front window, and less extent my back kitchen window, every spring. For the most part they fly away after some time.

Probably a lot of those birds had severe concussions and will suffer a lifetime of neurological issues.

[trueviking]

To me, this is just another ‘let’s download our problems on to renters because I’m not one’. If we care about birds so much, force people who live in houses, where most birds die, to obscure all their windows.

I can guarantee that would go over like a lead balloon. Not only because of cost, but also look and function.

I appreciate that you walk the walk and do have bird glass on your house. Anyone who thinks its a good idea to force housing developers to incur the cost had better also have made that investment on their own home or they are hypocrites.