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Originally Posted by dmacc
Quite a bit of office space is being created downtown. Seems strange since we've heard a lot on here about the office space market being saturated. Not that I care, bring on the cranes!!!
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Keep in mind that where there is lots of office space downtown there isn't a single owner of the space. If someone wants to come steal your lunch what you going to do to try and stop that? Or perhaps you are the one out there trying to steal the lunches.
Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
Yeah, good point, I suppose there are options... MAB, maybe space in one of the TNS residential buildings? Although I would think they'd want to replace their own purpose-built building with another purpose-built building that they own and control.
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Or perhaps there is a deal with True North Square that has them being a tenant in the residential tower. Essentially trading their existing space for new space owner a condo style ownership structure in the building, ie the RWB owns their spaces in the building but not the whole building. Or if it is just the student residence being given up to True North, which already owns Hull Books, perhaps there is a plan for a skywalk from the RWB studio/office through the to be built building and into the residential tower. Have the students on dedicated and otherwise locked out floors in the tower.
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Originally Posted by Wpg_Guy
That’s not going to happen, even with the sale of the land (assuming RWB owns it), I don’t think they are that flush with cash they could build a new purpose built facility.
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Keep in mind the proceeds from the sale could be either invested and earn revenue themselves or be put into other projects that more directly help meet the RWB objectives. Owning and operating a parking lot is not within the core mission of the RWB.
Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
Turning Carlton and Graham into the new Portage and Main is going to add to the parking crunch around there... I would imagine a new parkade somewhere can't be too far off in the distance.
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The parking crunch in the area really hit when Hydro moved. There was actually a somewhat behind the scenes fit between Hydro and MPI over it. Short version - Hydro was supposed to have more parking on site and couldn't. They went looking for parking and found it in the basement of CityPlace. MPI had previously being using that space. In reaction to that they bought the building and two surface lots.
Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
I wonder if the remaining TNS towers and this project will have much of an impact on downtown retail at Cityplace and Portage Place?
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Very doubtful. Winnipeg as a whole has basically hit a saturation point for retail currently. North America as a whole is actually in a major contraction phase for retail. It is why the downtown grocery store is likely never to happen. It applies even more to non-perishable goods. Why have multiple 4,000 sq ft or so stores, pay staffing costs, deal with shrink (theft), etc when you can setup a single giant warehouse and send your products to places like Churchill that would never be able to support a store. It is the new reality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
Wawanesa moving is pretty much the end of Broadway as the insurance and financial district that it became in the 60s and 70s. All that's really left is GWL/Canada Life, and they're in their own fortress at the end of the strip. It will be interesting to see who ends up in Wawanesa's building... I could see it being attractive to certain public sector users. One that comes to mind is the WRHA, they are spread out quite a bit and I hear their head office staff aren't crazy about their North Main location in the bunker. It's not impossible to imagine that building being given over for clinical/community program use and their staff moving to Broadway...
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WRHA is effectively dead. The RHA model is effectively being undone with most non-patient care areas moving to Shared Service, basically who things were before the RHA model happened.
An interesting one is the Infrastructure department had a tender out some years back for a single location downtown office. There was lots of talk at the time of properties that bid but it ended up never happening.
Another possibility might be for a somewhat scaled down version of the MLLC headquarters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dmacc
The future plans for Shared Health are to move to HSC, likely a long way off since there isn't enough space there and there is no funding coming down the pipe for a new build, especially just for a head office.
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Shared Health could either build on a portion of the old Manitoba Clinic site or across the corner on the surface lots there. Another possibility would be on the U of M medical campus portion of the large HSC campus. When the new woman's hospital opens the old woman's hospital and old nursing residence is a possibility. I think there is also land owned behind the William parkade. They might even look at the commerical buildings opposite childrens on Sherbroke. Heck the dialysis clinic on the northeast corner of Sherbroke and Notre Dame could even be a site if they moved out of there.
Reality is to the outside eye there isn't a lot of clear sites on the HSC campus but if there is money and interest in building a project there they will find the room.
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In an unrelated topic I noticed way finding signs showing up in downtown today at the corner of Graham and Garry. Sadly they have a completely different design language that the walkway ones. That said it is a positive to see those being added but the size and location suggests they are meant more for pedestrians or bikes.
* I'm very curious to see what kind of design this new tower will have... will it be fully integrated into TNS or will it have a unique look? My expectations are fairly high by Winnipeg standards as I wouldn't expect the developer or the tenant to cheap out on an ugly design.
* It is pretty cool to see all of this density around Cityplace now. The stretch between Hargrave and Edmonton used to be so dead, and now it's turning into one of the busiest parts of town. Hopefully that will translate to a livelier pedestrian environment too.[/QUOTE]
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