Winnipeg | Downtown | Portage Place | Redevelopment | U/C

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by CoryB

As for how a privately owned health care tower makes money off the public system let's just point at for-profit long term care homes like Rivera and Extendicare. The size of the tower suggests it is likely one of two things - a long term care home (aka pch) or a new residential addictions treatment center. There is a possibility it could even end up housing both on separate locked floors.

Not a PCH

"You'll be able to visit a walk-in clinic and primary care clinic on the ground floor, which government sources say is designed to take the stress off the nearby Health Sciences Centre and Misericordia hospitals.

Dialysis patients will have a 26,000 square-foot facility for their treatment, and others will be able to go their physiotherapy appointments.

The Downtown Winnipeg Health Centre for Excellence will also contain a future Rapid Access to Addictions Medicine (RAAM) clinic.

Rising above it: a 15-storey tower containing the Pan Am Centre for Advanced Musculoskeletal Medicine.

It will contain nearly 50,000 square feet of ambulatory and orthopedic surgery space, a concussion clinic, pain clinic, space for minor injury and sports medicine professionals and more."

[flatlander]

Originally Posted by trueviking

.

Hey look at what HSC has done for William Ave

[esquire]

Will this completely replace the Pan Am Clinic on Taylor, or is this a new branch?

Originally Posted by flatlander

Hey look at what HSC has done for William Ave

oof. Vicious but not inaccurate.

[drew]

I honestly don't care anymore how anyone wants to package this thing up to get a redevelopment happen.

Medical offices, hotels, residential, restaurants, daycares, whatever. Just figure out a way to get the necessary public/private funds in there and have at 'er.

[flatlander]

Originally Posted by drew

I honestly don't care anymore how anyone wants to package this thing up to get a redevelopment happen.

Medical offices, hotels, residential, restaurants, daycares, whatever. Just figure out a way to get the necessary public/private funds in there and have at 'er.

Seriously you guys are we that desperate that you would support one mistake to fix another? Lots of elements I like but let's not be unrealistic about the project.

[thurmas]

Originally Posted by esquire

Will this completely replace the Pan Am Clinic on Taylor, or is this a new branch?



oof. Vicious but not inaccurate.

New branch

[flatlander]

Originally Posted by esquire

Will this completely replace the Pan Am Clinic on Taylor, or is this a new branch?



oof. Vicious but not inaccurate.

A healthy dose of reality This isn't exactly going to be the Mayo Clinic - or is it?

[esquire]

Originally Posted by flatlander

A healthy dose of reality This isn't exactly going to be the Mayo Clinic - or is it?

In much the same way that Olympic Stadium is Montreal's curse (too expensive to improve it and bring it up to modern standards, even more expensive to demolish and redevelop), Portage Place is ours. There's no real use for it, but everyone knows that demolishing it would cost a fortune and mean a large empty void on Portage Avenue for years to come. I guess sometimes you just have to take what you can get.

[drew]

Originally Posted by flatlander

Seriously you guys are we that desperate that you would support one mistake to fix another? Lots of elements I like but let's not be unrealistic about the project.

Yes.

But honestly it's going to be some sort of office/residential component - at least for the towers, and you can always convert them one way or the other down the road.

The bottom 3 floors will be a constant change of uses regardless how this thing gets packaged right now.

So really, the only thing to argue about right now is the curb cuts, pedestrian walk way and a couple other bits. The rest will take care of itself one way or the other.

[thurmas]

At least this brings a critical mass of doctors, staff and patients and people who may need to fill hotel space as well. It gets downtown usage up from the nadir that was last year and at least gets things moving in the right direction coupled with possible graham ave and portage and main developments. We are playing catchup for the lack of action during the Bowman and Pallister years.

[thebasketballgeek]

Originally Posted by flatlander

Seriously you guys are we that desperate that you would support one mistake to fix another? Lots of elements I like but let's not be unrealistic about the project.

Based on the state of Downtown the last few years and certain projects being stalled I would say we absolutely are desparate for a development like this.

No it won’t fix many problems that persist in the DT, but definitely a step in the right direction like Drew mentioned. Also, that 16 storey residential building on the west side means more residents living on Portage which is always a benefit.

With the 300 units from the Bay and probably another 100 or so units with this development we could see 1,000 new residents just added on Portage in DT. Pair that with the new Polo Park development and hopefully the 20 storey building on 634 building and all of a sudden that’s a nice critical mass that is starting to re-emerge on Portage.

Of course economically the more high income workers we have in Downtown means more economic activity in the area so adding a bunch of 6 figure workers in the heart of downtown should help spur more retail demand. Especially if a few of those health professionals want to live in that new residential building.

[Wpg_Guy]

^ 300 Main still doesn't have a single resident, possession date is July 1st. so we still haven't seen an uptick from this development, lots to look forward to.

[pspeid]

Wow, it's taken hours for people to start crapping all over this project! That must be a new record, usually it takes less than a minute!

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Originally Posted by flatlander

Seriously you guys are we that desperate that you would support one mistake to fix another? Lots of elements I like but let's not be unrealistic about the project.

I stepped into PP the other day. Anything is better than this:

[1ajs]

Originally Posted by flatlander

Guess I'm a little less excited about the health care side of things. New Manitoba Clinic is struggling, Medical Arts shut down ... what is different about this? A bunch of people coming downtown for medical services who don't want to be downtown. Most medical clinics have moved to the suburbs, just like retail. Given the amount of public dollars in this project it seems vulnerable to a change in government as well. Happy to see some urban design/public realm improvements though.

most of the clinleft downtown cause they were forced to when their buildings they were in decided to not cater to tht market anymore

medical arts boyd building

ive talked with many clinics in my work and they were mad they had to move and could only find space in buildings with double the rent and no internt

[Atrial78]

This is an amazing development for Winnipeg! Winnipeg is growing and will benefit from more medical care space, housing, social services, and a grocer downtown. There are lots of young professionals (doctors, nurses, etc.) who will choose to live in the area if we can continue to make it more vibrant (which the city and TNSE is trying to do). Once a critical mass is reached, it will continue to draw more housing and retail development to the area.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by flatlander

A healthy dose of reality This isn't exactly going to be the Mayo Clinic - or is it?

Why does it have to be? I’m not sure how bringing thousands of good jobs, and thousands more patrons to Portage Avenue every day can be seen as anything but extremely positive. It’s recession proof. It’s work from home proof. It’s providing the fundamental building block of renewal. People.

It’s a perfect anchor to a large development. Is it a silver bullet? Of course not, there’s no such thing. But if the goal of a redevelopment is to bring people downtown, this is it. You can’t just build residential towers. You need employment to attract people to live downtown. People don’t live downtown and work at the Pan Am Clinic on Grant.

[trueviking]

I mean, the Hydro Building did little for Taylor Avenue so are we saying having those 2,000 workers downtown isn’t better? Even if most of them dont want to be downtown?

HSC is a self contained mega hospital in a residential neighbourhood. It has its own 20 storey hotel, retail, food service. If this project brings that kind of economic activity to downtown establishments, or even just to the rest of the Portage Place development, it’s a win. HSC is a big building full of people every day. Isn’t that what we want Portage Place to be?

I personally think it will be a driver of supportive development but even if it only creates activity in a building that spans three blocks of Portage Avenue in the same way HSC does, that’s awesome.

[pegster]

It's exciting, represents a real departure from the outdated retail mall concept, and has real money behind it. Chipman's recent interviews also seem to reflect that he has been deeply troubled by what he has seen downtown, and is invested in being part of the solution. I am hopeful.

Shame they couldn't be convinced to reopen the movie theatre though, eh?

[pspeid]

Video of Mark Chipman discussing the Portage Place proposal with reporters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzpO1PxzdNM

The photo OTA posted says just what Chipman is saying: Portage Place is on the brink, it needs someone to come in and redevelop it in a way that is beneficial for downtown. Out-of-town developers have no interest in taking on the job. The TNSE proposal is simply the best that is going to happen, and that's not "settling" or minimizing how great this will be for the city. It's recognizing that we have a successful local developer who has already invested in downtown who is willing to take on a huge project. The city and province are on-board. It's a very good proposal that needs to get done.