Winnipeg | Downtown Developments & Discussions

[wags_in_the_peg]

they fundraising dinner last night had Gretzky and all the Sportsnet folks (Ron McLean, Fridmann, etc)

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by drew

^ OMG. If you guys seem to be so content with the status quo - then I don't know what to say.

What I am saying is that the current "services" that are concentrated around Main/Higgins, and other areas of the City are not providing what these people need. That much should be obvious to anyone who spends time in and around downtown Winnipeg.

The recent damning article about the MSP, and the fact they can somehow afford to construct a brand new facility on Main street should give us all pause about where our money is going and who is funding this projects and why. We need more Bruce/Anne Oake Facilities. We do not need more self serving homeless agencies that seem to support an infinite loop of despair.

Ultimately, Winnipeg (and Canada as a whole), need more subsidized housing. In postwar Canada, we built thousands of units, to the point that it was extremely rare to see anyone in Canada homelesss. That started to change beginning in the 80s, when the number of public housing units dwindled to the point where it was incredibly rare for units to spring up.

Today, we see the result of people that are vulnerable, falling through the cracks of society and unable to afford to rent a roof over their heads. Study after study has concluded that Housing First initiatives pay for themselves in the long run, reduce crime, and drug abuse.

Unfortunately, that takes ambition, and that seems to be sorely lacking in any aspect of helping the less fortunate in the 21st century,

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by Highwayman

Want to solve the issue. Jail...6 months in a detox jail type set up. There are laws that the addicted break every single day that can circumvent the karens. Imagine the addicts coming out in 6 months clean. I bet we literally cut homelessness in half. Safe consumption sites do fck all. Note i am talking the addicted ones. Also when they come out clean have another step wnere they can get an education and get a job ans a place to stay for say another 6 to 12 months.

Life does not work like that, and I can't believe anyone would find this solution economically viable. Let's just throw them all in jail, where it cost exponentially more to incarcerate them, while they are not developing any skills or being productive to society. If you want your taxes to go up, and don't mind repeating a failed experiment from places like America, where they have the highest incarceration and crime rate in any first World country, then lock em all uo.

Put all the millions of dollars that we would spend to jail all the homeless people, and provide them with a roof over their head. How hard is that to implement?

[neutroniks]

To be fair though, America's incarceration rate isn't due to wanting social reform, it's because they just wanted to continue slavery; They simply re-branded it. Wrongful incarceration due to their broken justice system is at an all-time high.

[FactaNV]

I agree with BlackDog but understand its a tough sell. That public housing boom wasnt a coincedence - it was a response to the return of soldiers from the Great War and the Second World War who had nowhere to go. It was a response to a violation of the social contract - soldiers fought hard and won on the battlefield and the government acquiesed to the demands of veterans and civil society and built like crazy. There is no real pressure like that in this day in age, modern homeless people in Canadian cities are often drug-addicted or from Northern communities. I dont think that disqualifies their humanity or their right to a place to lay their head but it doesnt inspire the same sympathies as returning soldiers do.
With people and even governments being squeezed fiscally from all sides, something had to give and caring for the people on the absolute fringes is what gave.

Thats my two cents and my gut feeling on the problem.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by FactaNV

I agree with BlackDog but understand its a tough sell. That public housing boom wasnt a coincedence - it was a response to the return of soldiers from the Great War and the Second World War who had nowhere to go. It was a response to a violation of the social contract - soldiers fought hard and won on the battlefield and the government acquiesed to the demands of veterans and civil society and built like crazy. There is no real pressure like that in this day in age, modern homeless people in Canadian cities are often drug-addicted or from Northern communities. I dont think that disqualifies their humanity or their right to a place to lay their head but it doesnt inspire the same sympathies as returning soldiers do.
With people and even governments being squeezed fiscally from all sides, something had to give and caring for the people on the absolute fringes is what gave.

Thats my two cents and my gut feeling on the problem.

Well if it makes any difference, the likelihood of a big war in the foreseeable future is higher than at any point of time, since WW2.

[FactaNV]

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

Well if it makes any difference, the likelihood of a big war in the foreseeable future is higher than at any point of time, since WW2.

Oh trust me, I know. 11 years and counting in the Army...getting a little suspicious with actual funding for the first time in my career lol.

[bussche]

Originally Posted by drew

^ OMG. If you guys seem to be so content with the status quo - then I don't know what to say.

What I am saying is that the current "services" that are concentrated around Main/Higgins, and other areas of the City are not providing what these people need. That much should be obvious to anyone who spends time in and around downtown Winnipeg.

The recent damning article about the MSP, and the fact they can somehow afford to construct a brand new facility on Main street should give us all pause about where our money is going and who is funding this projects and why. We need more Bruce/Anne Oake Facilities. We do not need more self serving homeless agencies that seem to support an infinite loop of despair.

I'm not content with the status quo, I just take issue with your framing of what the status quo is.

There's been beef between Street Links and MSP for a long time, due to their different approaches. I wouldn't call an unsubstantiated claim from Street Links "damning." Street Links was also bragging in the article about how many people they've gotten out of encampments, at the same time as we're hearing about people dispersed from encampments "sleeping rough" all over this place, which I can attest to in my neighbourhood.

I agree that MSP is not providing all these people need, but they are providing the basic necessities of life. As ugly as the reality of addiction is, you can't get clean if you're dead. They do not have the capacity to help everyone and you can't force people to get clean.

I agree that we need more Gov't involvement in treatment facilities but we also need it combined with housing. Addiction can lead to homelessness but the opposite is true as well.

I work Downtown and live in the West End of the periphery of Downtown. I walk my daughter to school every morning, occasionally past people fent folding. I am very aware of the reality of the situation.

[Wpg_Guy]

• Video Link

[WinCitySparky]

The horse is liquid we have beat it so hard, holy god

[Wpg_Guy]

Downtown no place to be after dark, huge majority of Winnipeggers say in survey
Friday, Sep. 11, 2026




Most Winnipeggers are afraid to walk alone downtown and believe the city needs more police officers, a new survey finds.

Winnipeg Police Service released its 2026 citizen survey Friday.

Downtown safety appears to remain a major concern, with just 44 per cent saying they feel very or reasonably safe walking alone in the area during the day. The number plummets to eight per cent overall at night, down from nine per cent in 2024, the last time the survey was conducted.

This year, 14 per cent of men felt very or reasonably safe walking alone downtown at night, compared to just three per cent of women.

WPS Chief Gene Bowers said the survey shows there’s more work to do to build confidence in the area.

“Overall crime downtown (year-to-date is) down 10 per cent, violent crime is down 19 per cent downtown,” Bowers said. “Those are significant numbers…. Hopefully, the perception will change and people will feel safer.”

Police foot patrols are frequent in the city centre, and the Downtown Community Safety Partnership and Downtown Winnipeg BIZ also provide a visible security presence, all of which must continue, he said.

“By no means, is (this) a victory per se, but… I think I feel we’re moving in the right direction, and I think our members are working hard,” he said.

Despite the data, most Winnipeggers (58 per cent) believe crime has increased over the past year, but the number shows an improvement from 72 per cent who felt that way in 2024.

“I think (people are) seeing more of us,” Bowers said. “I think that we’re being more responsive to calls for service, so I think a lot of that is hitting home for people.”

Meanwhile, 93 per cent of those surveyed said a quick response to calls for service is a very or extremely important aspect of policing, though just 44 per cent rated WPS as excellent or good in that regard (up from 39 per cent in 2024).

Bowers said police are making strides in reducing that wait; detectives and members of other specialized units are helping answer calls, rather than leaving that task to general patrol officers to handle alone.

“There’s a lot of work being done as far as attending to that queue. It just shouldn’t be on the (general patrol) members. It’s a service-wide initiative and I think we’re seeing some change there,” he said.

Fifty-seven per cent of those surveyed said Winnipeg has too few police officers, while 28 per cent thought the number was about right, four per cent said there are too many and 11 per cent had no opinion.

Bowers said his past request for the city to fund more officers stands, as the WPS officer-to-population ratio is “quite low” compared to other cities.

“We would like another two cruiser cars, which is 36 members…. I’d like to see that number, of course, move up, because the city has grown,” he said.

Drug use was deemed an extremely or very serious neighbourhood problem by 30 per cent of those surveyed, while 32 per cent expressed the same level of concern about vandalism, graffiti or other deliberate damage to property or vehicles.

Overall, the perception of police improved slightly over the 2024 poll. This year, 56 per cent of respondents rated the service as excellent or good, up from 54 per cent two years earlier.

A total of 600 Winnipeg adults took part in the survey, which was conducted by Prairie Research Associates. They were interviewed by phone between July 23 and Aug. 14, via both landlines and cellphone numbers. The survey used quotas to ensure a representative sample by age, gender and region.

The margin for error is plus or minus four per cent, 19 times out of 20.


MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES

Results from the citizen survey show downtown safety appears to remain a major concern, with just 44 per cent saying they feel very or reasonably safe walking alone in the area during the day.

Mixed reviews on downtown
Winnipeggers who were downtown Friday had mixed responses when asked about security and safety in the area.

“In the daytime, I can say it’s 90 per cent safe,” Tsehaie Gmariam said as he was walking down Portage Avenue in the afternoon.

“At the night time, it depends. If you are talking about this one,” he said, pointing to Portage Avenue. “Because I live around here, I’ll try to be fair. At night, it’s like 50 per cent (safe).”

The 65-year-old, who has lived downtown since 1993, said the city has to address the root problems of social strife, such as addiction and poverty, the make the area safer.

“We have to help them,” he said about people in need, saying what’s needed is “tough love.”

“There’s people with knives and stuff,” said Komal Sran, a student at the University of Winnipeg Collegiate, who said she doesn’t feel safe downtown.

Sran said she is not surprised a survey found many Winnipeggers don’t feel secure in the area.

“I was walking to Starbucks after school and there were people (urinating) on the ground,” Sran said, giving an example of why she doesn’t feel safe.

She said more support for those who are living on streets might help improve safety in the area, alongside more security.

Her schoolmate, Arjun Gill, agrees, saying there’s got to be support for people who have nowhere to go or suffer from addictions.

Queen Kelly, who lives in Osborne Village, but walks downtown every day, said she never feels unsafe.

“It’s my first time to hear that, because I usually feel safe in the downtown,” she said when asked about the survey results.

Kelly said while she understands some people may feel unsafe at night, especially if drugs are being used in the open, the area has changed.

“Nowadays, on Portage Avenue, it’s different,” Kelly said.

Mandi Caine, 32, said downtown is not a scary spot.

“It’s home. I live downtown,” she said. “There’s more vehicles, more people around, so if anything is going down, nobody is going to want to be doing anything wrong.”

She said the majority of time she spends downtown is at night, and at times, the area gets a bad rap.

“If they don’t like it, they should just stay home,” she said.

For some who were just passing through, such as Michael Pfaffenger from Munich, Germany, Winnipeg’s downtown feels safe.

“There’s not as many weird creatures as in other cities in Canada,” he said. “I think it’s pretty safe compared to other cities we’ve visited, especially downtown.”

Winnipeg Free Press

[Wpg_Guy]

A resplendent homecoming
Artist’s inspired work brings Red River Métis story back to Portage and Main
By: Conrad Sweatman
Friday, Sep. 11, 2026


The massive metal chain screen featuring a traditional floral Métis beadwork design is installed on the facade of Winnipeg's historic Bank of Montreal building. (Ruth Bonneville / Free Press)



Jennine Krauchi calls them the “grandmothers.”

“They speak to you very silently. You never hear a word, but they speak,” Krauchi says, referring to the antique pieces of Métis needlework she’s carefully studied for years — a craft passed down across generations, with the pieces themselves sometimes serving as the instructive elders.

But there are few precedents for her latest art project: a 85-foot-wide by 32-foot-high chain curtain of Métis needlework — teeming with wild flowers, infinity symbols, berries and other motifs paying tribute to Red River Métis heritage and renewal — that drapes over the historic Bank of Montreal’s neoclassical facade.

That building, at 335 Main St., will soon bear another title: Red River Métis National Heritage Centre or La Plas Taanshi kaa-Ishipamachihoyaahk, its Michif name.

The chain curtain appears as a laser-cut metal layer, “pinned on” and not damaging the original century-old engraved lintel; all part of Number TEN Architectural Group’s redesign of the 113-year-old former bank at Portage and Main.

Scheduled to open next year in late summer or early fall, the Manitoba Métis Federation’s new heritage centre will prioritize heritage exhibits, education and contemporary art.

A foundational part of the collection is called “Our Grandmothers.” The body of 142 items — including horse blankets, silk embroidery, firebags, beadwork and more, some dating back to 1830 — transports viewers back to the Red River settlement of yore.

Portage and Main was but a scrubby intersection of ox cart paths, surrounded by swamp, when it was purchased by Henry McKenney in 1862.

While now considered Canada’s most famous — and windiest — intersection, at the time it was dwarfed by a more significant intersection: the Forks, which for thousands of years offered a Y-marks-the-spot gathering point for traders and travellers using the continent’s river highway systems.

The Forks served as the fur trade’s hub, drawing the Hudson’s Bay Company and North West Company to establish rival strongholds such as Fort Garry and Fort Gibraltar, with the Red River Métis forming a basis of these trading posts’ workforces.

The heritage centre will help to preserve and illuminate this history, while creating an active space for contemporary Red River Métis culture and art.

“This is where the birth of the Red River Métis started and we want to continue because now our baby has grown into adulthood and she’s beautiful,” says Barbara Fleury, the MMF’s minister of Culture, Heritage, and Michif Language.

“We want to bring our people back to being at home and (thriving) like we once did, because that was taken away from us.”

The MMF is the federally recognized national government of the Red River Métis and has more than 60,000 citizens.

MMF’s head office will remain at 150 Henry Ave. while its space at 333 Main St. will serve as an expansion, with the main and mezzanine levels hosting the new heritage centre and the building’s two upper levels serving as offices for various MMF departments.

The renovations include extensive HVAC and electrical upgrades and energy-efficient glazing, and is buoyed by a $33.1-million investment from the federal and provincial government made in 2022.

And, in case anyone’s wondering, the building’s famous vaults will be kept intact.

“We respect the heritage of the building … The bank vaults will remain in place, fully a part of our vision for the restoration of the space,” says Fleury.

It was considered the world’s most impenetrable vault at the time of its making, with the entrance doors together weighing about 450 tonnes, or the equivalent of 90 elephants.

Number TEN associate architect Aaron Pollock and partner/practice leader Greg Hasiuk highlight designing, building and installing the chain curtain as one of the project’s most interesting challenges, both logistically and in service of a larger problem: how to reimagine a “colonial edifice” like the Bank of Montreal as an Indigenous milieu while doing justice to the building’s significant heritage?

When McKenney purchased the plot at Portage and Main to build a store, many settlers considered the move ill-advised — it seemed too far from the river, which at the time was the only nearby source of water. But the arrival of the railways and the Prairie grain boom quickly transformed the swampy area into the city’s modern business district.

The Exchange served as its commodity shipping hub while Bankers Row — a two-block strip on Main from Portage to Bannatyne that hosted as many 20 financial institutions in the late 1800s — anchored the city’s financial world. The Bank of Montreal loomed as the district’s most important bank, drawing eastern capital to grease the wheels of westward expansion.

Yet this expansion dispossessed many Red River Métis and other Indigenous communities of their land, coming to a head with the Red River Resistance (1869–70) and North-West Resistance in 1885.

Social pressures and government policies — such as 1890’s Official Language Act, which made English the province’s sole official language and strictly restricted education in other languages, despite initial protections for French — pushed Red River Métis people toward assimilation.

“The first thing that would identify (the Métis) is their beadwork. So they hid their beadwork because of racism,” Krauchi says. “Some of it was actually taken away from them and burnt.”

Whatever its colonial trappings, the building at 335 Main St., which was built between 1911-13 and vacated in 2020, still stands out as the city’s richest example of neoclassical architecture. The renovations are meant to preserve the historic site, not just by upgrading its mechanical and electric infrastructure, by giving it new life and ensuring it doesn’t fall into neglect and disrepair.

“You’ve got these huge columns. It’s all stone. It feels very cold and stoic, but it’s meant to give this sense of permanence. But how do you infuse a new Métis layer onto that that feels more welcoming, that feels more vibrant?” Pollock says.

The layer they created to solve this problem isn’t just metaphorical, but a quasi-translucent tapestry of 750,000 individual links. Hasiuk says that if all of the pieces of chain were laid out end to end, they would stretch 14 kilometres.

“I never dreamed I would do anything on this scale,” adds Krauchi, though a four-by-26-foot fire bag she made for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in 2014 gave her a taste of what it takes to build work on such a large scale.

Krauchi’s meticulously drawn mock-up for the curtain, which included holes for the Bank of Montreal’s six Ionic columns, was used as a blueprint by Kriskadecor, a 100-year-old design company based in Spain that creates customized projects with aluminum chains.

The curtain was then transported to Winnipeg in panels and assembled here.

“At times, it’s completely invisible, like at 5 o’clock when the sun is shining in the evening down Portage Avenue and hits the building, it almost disappears and it’s amazing. And at other times, like in the morning, it’s quite solid looking,” Hasiuk says.

The heritage centre is poised to take on a palette of hues, thanks to its colour-changing lighting.

“When the Jets win the Stanley Cup, it’s gonna be red and blue,” says Hasiuk, adding that the 2025 opening of Portage and Main to pedestrians could not have been better timed.

Like the architects, Fleury positions the centre as part of a broader downtown renewal.

“(MMF) president (David) Chartrand once said that without a downtown, there’s no city,” she says. “It’s our bringing home of our Red River Métis people that’s going to help enlighten downtown.”


RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS
Métis beadwork artist Jennine Krauchi with her large-scale, chain-link Métis public artwork that now graces the outside of MMF’s Bank of Montreal building at Portage and Main.


Number TEN Architectural Group

Krauchi’s design for the 85 x 32 ft. chain curtain expression of Métis needlework is rich with wild flowers, berries and other traditional motifs.


Part of artist Jennine Krauchi's Métis beadwork design (Ruth Bonneville / Free Press)


RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS
The massive metal chain screen featuring a traditional floral Métis beadwork design is being installed on the facade of Winnipeg’s historic Bank of Montreal building at Portage and Main.


Part of the massive metal chain screen featuring a traditional floral Métis beadwork design by Jennine Krauchi (Ruth Bonneville / Free Press)


Number TEN Architectural Group

The interior stage as envisioned by Number TEN Architectural Group.

Winnipeg Free Press

[Wpg_Guy]

MMF walks away from bid to buy Fort Garry Hotel
Carol Sanders
Monday, Sep. 14, 2026


“The price just went too high and we walked away from it,” Manitoba Métis Federation President David Chartrand said as the reason the MMF will not pursue the purchase of the Fort Garry Hotel. They are now considering building a new hotel with its Chinese investment partner. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press files)

The Manitoba Métis Federation won’t buy the historic Fort Garry Hotel, President David Chartrand said Monday.

“The price just went too high and we walked away from it,” he said in an interview from Toronto, where he’s attending the Canada investment summit.

The MMF and its Chinese investment partner “might build a new hotel together now,” Chartrand said.

“It’s just not that we don’t have the money with our partner. We definitely have the money, but we both see the same thing — that our return (on investment) would take too long versus what we’d like to see.”

The federation has purchased several downtown buildings in recent years, including the former Bank of Montreal building at Portage Avenue and Main Street. In July, it announced the purchase of the former National Research Council property on Ellice Avenue.

The independently owned Fort Garry Hotel, acquired by local entrepreneurs Ida Albo and Richard Bel, and Quebec-based Laberge Group in 1993, went on the market in May for the second time in seven years.

The four-star, 113-year-old hotel, a national historic site, did not have a list price, but it is expected to sell for tens of millions of dollars.

Avison Young, a global commercial real estate advisory firm headquartered in Toronto, and local broker Cushman & Wakefield Winnipeg, were retained to handle the sale.

“We have received multiple bids from domestic and international buyers for this premier hospitality opportunity,” Andrea Zviedris with Avison Young said in an email Monday.

“The Fort Garry Hotel has been very well received by the investment community. We hope to have more news in the near future.”

The investment brochure for the hotel says there is a “movement across the country from sophisticated public and private investors to generate significant investment value by repositioning these iconic assets.” It points to the Fairmont Empress in Victoria, Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, Fairmont Royal York in Toronto and Fairmont Queen Elizabeth in Montreal as examples.

Meanwhile, the Fairmont Winnipeg at the iconic corner of Portage and Main is undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation from top to bottom, that required it to close to guests from July 1 until next spring.

“The majority of global hotel companies have new brand classifications targeting iconic and irreplaceable hotels,” the Fort Garry Hotel’s brochure said.

”A variety of different hotel management options could drive efficiencies boosting income results.The general hotel market and economic profile of Winnipeg is healthy. There is significant real estate investment across a variety of asset classes within the city’s downtown core.”

Located at 222 Broadway, just west of Main, the Fort Garry has 236 guest rooms and suites, a spa, restaurants, conference and banquet space, and a live entertainment venue that was home to a Yuk Yuk’s comedy club until earlier this year.

Constructed in Château style, the hotel welcomes about 80,000 guests annually and employs nearly 400 people.

Winnipeg Free Press

[Wpg_Guy]

I think the MMF walking away from the Fort Garry Hotel looks like a genuine win-win. The hotel can now hopefully go to an experienced hotelier with a real brand behind it, while the MMF can build a new hotel of its own — maybe even filling one of those Pioneer Avenue parking lots, assuming they own that property along with the office towers on that block.

[Authentic_City]

^a new hotel build is an intriguing possibility. Hopefully downtown. And I wonder who this Chinese investment partner is?

[Unbending]

At first I was disappointed with the MMF walking away, because they done a great job with so many downtown buildings. But the silver lining for me in the article is that the Fort Garry hotel still has value. So many historic buildings are not worth anything and in horrible shape. Owners struggle to sell them, give them away (like the Bay), or repurpose them. Goods news is that the Fort Garry hotel continues to be desirable both locally and internationally.

[wags_in_the_peg]

although it's great to be an independent hotel, vast majority of business travelers only book at their preferred chain (or where their company has contracts with). I can see the Hotel Ft Garry moving into this same direction

[neutroniks]

Originally Posted by Authentic_City

^a new hotel build is an intriguing possibility. Hopefully downtown. And I wonder who this Chinese investment partner is?

Hopefully near the Sutton so they can show them what a real hotel is supposed to look like. Maybe the lot across from the RBC Convention Centre

[bomberjet]

Maybe MMF can pry one of the lots along Main St away from their current owners. Maybe the land next at 416 Main or near the former Earls.

[neutroniks]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Maybe MMF can pry one of the lots along Main St away from their current owners. Maybe the land next at 416 Main or near the former Earls.

Former Earls would make sense with it being right across from one of their buildings.