Red River revitalization: Fargo & Winnipeg

[viperred88]

You guys make too much sense, oh wish this city would just wake up and take initiative to take much more care of downtown...

Originally Posted by drew

The thing that really grates me about downtown Winnipeg is the focus on office-only type developments, or re-developments for older, vacant buildings.

As an example, the redevelopment of The Avenue Building was given for office use. Here is a older character building just ripe for residential use in the heart of downtown. Unfortunately there is about 0 demand for new office space in downtown Winnipeg.
This means that the Avenue building will sit dark, empty and deteriorating for another couple years waiting for some existing city firm to play musical chairs with their office space downtown.

Another example is the Union Bank Tower. This building has existing floor plates unsuitable for modern office use. But each floor has 4 walls of windows and perfect space for residential units. This tower should have been converted in condos YEARS ago. To me it seems like a complete no-brainer. Yet someone in their infinite wisdom has held out waiting for, again, office re-development that will never happen in the foreseeable future. This building has sat empty for years now waiting for some idiot to break in and start a fire.
It's good news that the RRC will hopefully move into the Union Tower, but it should NEVER have taken this long.

The city should really relax it's zoning in the downtown to allow development to happen where the current demand lies. When there is no demand for office buildings, the city should be trying as hard as possible to push residential developments for existing buildings and vacant lots.

Originally Posted by Only The Lonely..

The same can be said for any of the surface lots around Portage & Main.

I look at the empty lots the Richardson's own between the ball park and Lombard place and wonder why they don't build a fancy condo highrise.

The views of the river and surrounding downtown would be spectacular, the ballpark, Forks, and CMHR would be your neighbours and to top it all off the property sits at the mouth of the Exchange.

Instead, these lots will sit empty for decades waiting for some mystery commercial tenant to fall out of the sky.

[flatlander]

Originally Posted by drew

The thing that really grates me about downtown Winnipeg is the focus on office-only type developments, or re-developments for older, vacant buildings.

As an example, the redevelopment of The Avenue Building was given for office use. Here is a older character building just ripe for residential use in the heart of downtown. Unfortunately there is about 0 demand for new office space in downtown Winnipeg.
This means that the Avenue building will sit dark, empty and deteriorating for another couple years waiting for some existing city firm to play musical chairs with their office space downtown.

Another example is the Union Bank Tower. This building has existing floor plates unsuitable for modern office use. But each floor has 4 walls of windows and perfect space for residential units. This tower should have been converted in condos YEARS ago. To me it seems like a complete no-brainer. Yet someone in their infinite wisdom has held out waiting for, again, office re-development that will never happen in the foreseeable future. This building has sat empty for years now waiting for some idiot to break in and start a fire.
It's good news that the RRC will hopefully move into the Union Tower, but it should NEVER have taken this long.

The city should really relax it's zoning in the downtown to allow development to happen where the current demand lies. When there is no demand for office buildings, the city should be trying as hard as possible to push residential developments for existing buildings and vacant lots.

I agree that we need to make the focus residential. Personally I think it is much easier to find 50 people interested in living in the Avenue Building than a company looking for 50,000 square feet of office space. Unfortunately when CentreVenture issued the RFP last year there weren't any residential proposals. Could still happen - the sale fell through.

The Royal Bank tower is a funny one. The floorplates are surprisingly small - 5000 square feet or so. You're only going to get maybe 5-6 units tops on each floor - that would be what, 35 units or so? I don't recall how many stories but subtract the banking hall and mezzanine. Also the stair/elevator is in the corner which apparently makes it a little more challenging. I think in the case of this building you'd get so few units out of it, it would never pay to do residential. However, it would seem you can cram a bunch of students in there and make some dough.

There was a little bit of momentum building there housing-wise. We need to keep it up.

[drew]

^ perhaps the city should try and focus the RFP's in the direction that makes the most sense. Maybe they could call it a RFRP, "request for residential proposals"...

If the city didn't get any interest in terms of residential proposals, I think this really points to a serious need for focused tax breaks and other incentives downtown to spur on these kinds of developments. I had thought Katz campaigned the last election with something along these lines in the works...?

In terms of residential at the Union Tower, I was thinking more along the lines of max. 2 units per floor with maybe the top 1 or 2 floors reserved as full floor penthouses. If they can fetch $700,000 to a million or so on Waterfront, the penthouse suite on the top floor of a ten story heritage block could certainly be expected to get some serious interest.

[trueviking]

i think student housing is the perfect fit for union tower....way higher density, unique demographic....there are lots of places for wealthy retirees to buy there 700k condo in the exchange....would be nice to get some diversity....especially if they use the ground floor too.

one building that i think would make great condo's is the taller building at rorie and mcdermot, beside where pockets used to be....i think there was a bar called phat daddy's there for a while....it is right in the heart of it all and sits totally empty.

thats bad news about the avenue building deal falling through....will that building be empty forever?

[drew]

Originally Posted by trueviking

i think student housing is the perfect fit for union tower....way higher density, unique demographic....there are lots of places for wealthy retirees to buy there 700k condo in the exchange....would be nice to get some diversity....especially if they use the ground floor too.

I agree, but I had always expected something a little more "grand" for the Union Tower.

IMO the McClaren Hotel would be a better fit for reno'ing into student housing (not that it's an option but...).

[Tower Crane]

It's been 24 years since I worked at Birt Saddlery, they were talking about these same scenario's then ( 24 years ago ) what's the reality of something happening and when?