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Originally Posted by roccerfeller
You’re probably right. But one never knows. For example 300 main was announced out of nowhere (for myself it was, as for the general public) ... I thought Winnipeg would be getting a steady (every one - two years) stream of buildings in the 60-80m height range. And then hello 300 Main St. Haha
People said the same thing about the Bow in Calgary, and all of a sudden Brooksfield was announced out of no where. I distinctly remember criticism from NIMBYs out there (yes, we had them in Calgary too) about the look of the building and how it’s too big and something of that nature and someone replying with “we won’t ever see a taller structure for many, many years so let’s enjoy this one)
Few years later, Brooksfield announced.
After than, our neighbour to the North, not known for the same heights seen in Calgary, came with a big surprise in the form of Santec tower which will be the tallest in the province.
I know there’s completely different underlying market and demand factors in Alberta and those cities plus their respective sizes vs Winnipeg, but we will be marching towards 900k CMA and I could see a 150+m tower announced out of nowhere
Or at least if not a new tallest, something in the 110-140m range
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Cities like Calgary had more economic indicators suggesting favourable market conditions for growth. Whether it's low supply of apartments and (previously) condos, to resource based booms, the positives are (or were) obvious.
Winnipeg is steady Eddie, and while tech is growing, it and venture capitalism in general is much more speculative. We have a healthy apartment market but are unsure if we're flooding it with too much new supply (I don't think we are). Office is steady but nobody is going to give themselves the headache TNS assumed by building class A high volume space and grind to fill it halfway, often at expense of other downtown space.
Things can happen out of nowhere, but there are more supporting factors for such acts of God in Calgary, for example. The wildcard is that our downtown is growing at a strong rate, but it's so relatively small that we don't know where our figurative saturation is... but maybe there is much more ongoing demand.
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Originally Posted by windypeg
Agreed. As much as I would love to see a couple of 200m+ towers pop into the skyline, we need infill throughout our sprawling downtown. I'd rather have a bunch of 5-10 story buildings go up on surface lots than have one 50-story (but I would love a 50-story nonetheless). Fill in the streetscape down at ground level before we worry too much about filling in the skyline. But I do realize this is SkyscraperPage not StreetscapePage and we like tall towers.
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The potential problem is that what we think (or planners think) would be nice for downtown only means so much. The developer's dollar matters, and our construction costs are very high. Since land is individually owned, everyone will try to maximize their buildings in order to overcome their land and construction costs... Developer A has no incentive to stay at 5 stories so his neighbour can do the same. He'll build 10 if the market can support it.
The wildcard, as aforementioned, is if demand for apartments continues and downtown gains more momentum. We don't know if it has enough draw YET to be a destination, but maybe we're closer than we think
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Originally Posted by EspionNoir
Yeah. Once I dived into the MB Hydro thread and found people saying that it would be the only development for another 20 years. Then we see many others being built. Hope the status quo will be broken soon this time.
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Crown project, so doesn't even count. 201 Portage until Centrepoint... that was the gap.
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Originally Posted by cheswick
IG has had massive layoffs and moved their call centre from portage place to one Canada centre. They have excess capacity there. Also moving some responsibilities to Toronto and the Mackenzie offices there. Don’t see them neeeding any office space any time soon.
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Speculating over one major companies bulk needs is, well, almost impossible.