Winnipeg Construction IX

[wardlow]

The Fortune Block renovation is one of the most exciting projects underway downtown... just to think of how rough and semi-abandoned that building has looked for as long as I can remember, and the level of detail and careful restoration they put in it. It's pretty amazing, and we can only hope sets a new bar for restoring old buildings.

The photos of the interior details reminds me so much of numerous buildings on Main Street that I've been in, some of which are now gone (eg, the Weir Hardware building at 666 Main). I'm thinking mostly of this row further north on Main. The Allman Block/Neon Factory has a gorgeous skylight and stairway. Hoping they one day can get the same treatment.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by cheswick

I still don’t understand people’s logic in regards to a parking crunch. Parking rates are easily changed to equate demand to supply. If there’s a parking crunch then raise the rates, the crunch is gone.

The challenge here is eventually it hits a point were the cost or lack of available parking as spots get permanently allocated to specific long term users that people stop coming downtown ever. Further, the "lack of parking" has already started driving business to relocate from downtown to the suburbs where parking is widely and cheaply available. It isn't just a cost equilibrium that needs to be reached.

Originally Posted by buzzg

This is all just an argument for improving transit service.

See my comment above. The challenge is we are lifetimes away from seeing a truly functional transit system in Winnipeg and all the "stop what we are doing to improve it and built only LRT" doesn't help.

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by CoryB

The challenge here is eventually it hits a point were the cost or lack of available parking as spots get permanently allocated to specific long term users that people stop coming downtown ever. Further, the "lack of parking" has already started driving business to relocate from downtown to the suburbs where parking is widely and cheaply available. It isn't just a cost equilibrium that needs to be reached.

'No one goes downtown, it's too crowded.'

[Wolf13]

Originally Posted by CoryB

(high water table?)

Parking costs in all of downtown also spiked up significantly due to the increase in demand. And in response to the hike in parking costs transit too went through what had been until then relatively unprecedented fair increases.

The one perhaps upside of True North Square is that it is not really bringing new people downtown like Hydro Place did but rather shuffling around chairs that are already downtown.

1) yep, the high water table is a 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 downtown
2) Perfectly normal market response for increased rates and fares. All still very affordable.
3) How is that a good thing? We want more people downtown. Increased rates is ok if lots are full.

Originally Posted by esquire

^ I park in the Cityplace parkade, and the daily rate went from $9.50 to $13.00 the week after the TNS office tower opened. 37% price hike overnight. I'm sure the P&M parkades won't be cutting their prices either after TDS, MNP and Scotiabank leave the area.

I'm sure they'll backfill their parking super quickly. 300 Main will have to kick several people out of their parkade to make way for their residents, which is also why Artis bought the garry st parkade... there is demand. Anyone expelled from the Artis parkade will happily go to 201's.

Not to mention the consistent growth the area is seeing.

Originally Posted by cheswick

I still don’t understand people’s logic in regards to a parking crunch. Parking rates are easily changed to equate demand to supply. If there’s a parking crunch then raise the rates, the crunch is gone.

+1

Originally Posted by Biff

The Fortune Block is magnificent.

Think of how close we were to loosing it to a potential new hotel that, although would have been great, can easily go across the street or any other surface lot in downtown.

Bravo Mr Pollard.

Originally Posted by Urban recluse

TO think of how much money he is spending, wow!

Exactly... there's a reason many don't do this... it's very expensive.

I fear that he set a precedent that many can't financially justify to match lol

It's glorious though.

Originally Posted by CoryB

The challenge here is eventually it hits a point were the cost or lack of available parking as spots get permanently allocated to specific long term users that people stop coming downtown ever. Further, the "lack of parking" has already started driving business to relocate from downtown to the suburbs where parking is widely and cheaply available. It isn't just a cost equilibrium that needs to be reached.



See my comment above. The challenge is we are lifetimes away from seeing a truly functional transit system in Winnipeg and all the "stop what we are doing to improve it and built only LRT" doesn't help.

I'd say Winnipeg is turning the corner on needing THAT much parking...

And I don't use transit, but have a couple friends that do. I'm no barometer on it, but they never complain about it

Originally Posted by wardlow

'No one goes downtown, it's too crowded.'

lol

[buzzg]

New lighting up the 4 corners of Newport Center – looks great. At first I was afraid that it meant they weren't doing the exterior reno's based on the location, but they're actually placed above where the entrance addition is supposed to reach.





Can't tell as much in the photo, but the lighting reaches almost all the way to the top. Unsure if they change colours or not – it's set at like an indigo colour, surprised not Rogers Red.

[Wpg_Guy]

^Looks great, love it!

[buzzg]

Yeah it seems like finally building owners are starting to see the difference (and added value) good exterior lighting can make.

[Wpg_Guy]

I remember reading the new owners saying they wanted to light up the building so people noticed it.

Edit, here it is:

"I almost wonder if at Portage and Main, they’re now almost spending money to play catch-up," said Douglas McDonald, principal of McCOR Management, which manages the 17-storey Newport Centre office tower at 330 Portage Ave. "They had that (Class A) market captured, and now there is a shift in the tenants and what they are desiring."

McDonald said the new owners of Newport Centre — KingSett Real Estate Growth LP No. 6 and CCI Corpfin Capital Acquisition Fund 1 LP — hope to cash in on that tenant shift by spending $8 million to $9 million over the next three to five years on renovations to their building, which is one block north of True North Square.

"With tenants moving from Portage and Main to True North Square, there’s an opportunity," McDonald said.

"There will be tenants who will want to be in this zone and this location that don’t necessarily want to pay new-office lease rates. So there’s an opportunity to capture that target market."

McDonald said Newport Centre is ideally located because it’s surrounded by four new, or fairly new, developments — True North Square, the Manitoba Hydro head office, the 311 Portage Avenue at Centrepoint mixed-use development, and the Bell MTS Centre.

"We’re at centre ice here... so the plan is to do some repositioning of the asset and add value to the asset."

The upgrades will include changes to the bottom two floors.

"We’re exploring several options with the architect. They could include moving the lobby, or it could include incorporating a new restaurant... and some new signage."

They may also light up the exterior of the building.

"We want, when people drive by, to go, ‘Oh, I never noticed that building before.’ It’s not going to be a full re-glazing like Artis REIT did with their building, but we’re definitely going to enhance the look of it."

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/snazzy-new-office-digs-downtown-460196833.html

[Wpg_Guy]

Massive Ivan Eyre sculptures take watch over downtown Winnipeg

Bird Wrap and Icon North are part of a series done late in the long career of Ivan Eyre

Darren Bernhardt · CBC News · Posted: Oct 25, 2018 2:29 PM CT



Two colossal sentinels are now casting watchful gazes over downtown Winnipeg.

The sculptures, from world-renowned artist Ivan Eyre, were installed on Wednesday, gracing the wide ramp in front of the Winnipeg Art Gallery and greeting passersby.

"They're two bronze sculptures, both figures that look to be human, but there are animal qualities to them, and they're huge. They rise up about seven to eight feet," said Stephen Borys, director and CEO of the gallery on Memorial Boulevard.

"That ramp was made for things like this."

The sculptures, Bird Wrap and Icon North, are part of a series done late in the long career of Eyre, who closed his studio in 2013.

"He's no longer producing work, so to have these two works, which are both gifts from the artist, on our ramp is fabulous," Borys said.

Icon North faces, of course, north. Bird Wrap faces Memorial.

Both sculptures have been in exhibitions in Montreal and Vancouver and were acquired a little over a year ago by the WAG.

"We were waiting for that right moment that they both were here and ready to be installed," Borys said. They will be on long-term display.

Borys hopes they become another "go-to selfie spot" in the city, an accessible place where people can pose with "one of Winnipeg's most important artists."

Eyre, 83, was born in rural Saskatchewan in 1935 and moved to Winnipeg in 1953 to attend the University of Manitoba School of Art.

The university became a longtime home for Eyre, who taught painting and drawing there for 33 years, from 1959 until his retirement in 1992.

He continued to produce work on his own, in his Winnipeg studio, until 2013.

Eyre has been called "a living national treasure" by the Vancouver International Sculpture Biennale, a charitable organization that mounts a major outdoor sculpture exhibition every two years.

The WAG is home to 75 Eyre artworks — paintings, drawings and sculptures — and oversees the Ivan Eyre Gallery at the Assiniboine Park Pavilion.

The Assiniboine Park Conservancy houses the largest collection of Eyre's work.

Another of his pieces, North Watch, is on display at one of Winnipeg's most famous locations, Portage Avenue and Main Street, on the plaza in front of the Richardson Building.


Bird Wrap
The art gallery describes Bird Wrap as a large bronze sculpture of a kneeling figure that looks to be a man in disguise, wearing a tie and vest, along with a beaked helmet or headdress that extends down and wraps over the figure's crossed arms. The headdress also reads as a form of military helmet, giving the figure a powerful air.

It's the most simple and stoic statement among the monumental bronzes he created between 2009 and 2011, a news release from the gallery says.

It was one of the first major works installed as part of the Vancouver Biennale's 2014-16 Open Air Museum exhibition.


Icon North
This sculpture is a figure sitting with arms extended and knees bent in the pose of a sturdy sentinel, the gallery says. His large hands grasp at his knees while long fingers reach to tall and bulky boots.

A sense of authority in its upright and robust posture is further reinforced by the militant pattern of the figure's bootlaces and collar, the WAG release says.

A simple vest, narrow wristbands and a helmet complete the uniform. The gallery calls the mask of the helmet "comic in its proportions, but the overall effect is both powerful and otherworldly."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/ivan-eyre-sculptures-winnipeg-art-gallery-1.4877922

[buzzg]

Awesome. Was just walking down Memorial yesterday and thinking about how barren and desolate that stretch is. There's an extra NB lane on that block that has no use. Would be awesome to get new plants, trees, and streetscaping.

[buzzg]

The city has randomly replaced a few of the South Main globe lights with our standard faux-heritage ones like on Corydon. It looks absolutely ridiculous.

Sometimes I just don't understand what goes on in city ops.

[LilZebra]

Originally Posted by buzzg

Awesome. Was just walking down Memorial yesterday and thinking about how barren and desolate that stretch is. There's an extra NB lane on that block that has no use. Would be awesome to get new plants, trees, and streetscaping.

The pavement along Memorial is just atrocious, for the importance of the location near the Legislature.

It should have fresh asphalt or concrete its whole length.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by LilZebra

The pavement along Memorial is just atrocious, for the importance of the location near the Legislature.

It should have fresh asphalt or concrete its whole length.

Agreed 100%. The state of the pavement is absurdly bad on Memorial. It would terrible for some ramshackle industrial area out by the CP yards, nevermind right in front of the Legislature. How much could it really cost the province to put a couple of inches of blacktop over it and make it less of an embarrassment?

[dmacc]

Originally Posted by esquire

Agreed 100%. The state of the pavement is absurdly bad on Memorial. It would terrible for some ramshackle industrial area out by the CP yards, nevermind right in front of the Legislature. How much could it really cost the province to put a couple of inches of blacktop over it and make it less of an embarrassment?

Isn't memorial city responsibility?

[buzzg]

Originally Posted by dmacc

Isn't memorial city responsibility?

I think south of York is provincial as its part of the “mall.”

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by wardlow

'No one goes downtown, it's too crowded.'

Ah, a variation of a Yogi Berra quote!

[plrh]

Originally Posted by buzzg

I think south of York is provincial as its part of the “mall.”

All the parking meters on that stretch are provincially enforced. I think they are still the old style analog ones.

[905er]

Are there any renders of what the Rogers tower reno will look like when it's done?.. are they recladding the building?

[bomberjet]

There are renders somewhere. The tower will look basically the same as it is now. Looks like it was re-painted white. And they replaced 2 of the 4 sides of windows recently.

The podium area will get a makeover, with some kind of patio on the lower neighbouring roof. IIRC.

[Ando]

Originally Posted by Wpg_Guy

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/ivan-eyre-sculptures-winnipeg-art-gallery-1.4877922

Thanks for the update - great addition.