Winnipeg Construction X

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by Biff

I say it will be more taller office towers. Social distancing will result in one office per floor buildings. Wawanesa will re-jig their proposal and build 15 - 100 storey buildings downtown for their 1,500 employees.

I'd prefer 100, 15 storey buildings.

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by roccerfeller

Although not likely over 100m, the Wawanesa tower is the next dedicated office building. Will be interesting to see how that plays out

Was there any indication given how tall that wawanesa projet might be?

[roccerfeller]

Originally Posted by Luisito

Was there any indication given how tall that wawanesa projet might be?

I think it’s going to be in the 80-90 meter range, similar to true north tower #2, but that’s my pure opinion based on renders

My understanding is it is 19 storeys of office space, not sure how much podium and roof height will factor

[bomberjet]

We have 2 floors in one office building and had been talking about giving up maybe half a floor. As we have recently had large projects, with people form out of town, wind down.

So we had about a 2:1 ratio of office space to people. Now that is to our advantage as we could bring back everyone in the office and maintain social distancing.

There are pods of 4 cubicles together. So we'd have 2 people per pod of 4 desks. Right now we're on a 50/50 rotating basis. 1 person comes in this week. the other person next week.

WFH has no impact on our business, at all. It's all individual preference. Older crowd and extroverts yurn for the coffee room chats. I could care less TBH. We still chat over teams all the time. And have done social functions recently to meet outside of work hours.

Long term, this experiment proves that we don't necessarily need desks for everybody in a traditional office setting. But could have common spaces and meeting rooms for when we would need to or would like to be in office. Otherwise WFH it is. It would save businesses on costs of maintaining large spaced out offices.

[Arts]

Originally Posted by trueviking

I'd prefer 100, 15 storey buildings.

I know it's a completely ridiculous discussion anyways... but, there are many cities out there with 100+ 15-storey buildings, and not a single city has anywhere close to 15 100-storey buildings (I think Dubai leads with three). I'd take the 15 supertalls, from a purely awe-inspiring PoV.

[BAKGUY]

Originally Posted by roccerfeller

I think it’s going to be in the 80-90 meter range, similar to true north tower #2, but that’s my pure opinion based on renders

My understanding is it is 19 storeys of office space, not sure how much podium and roof height will factor

I believe you are accurate on your guess of height.
It would be a reach to see it make 90 metres and I sure hope so but likely in the 82 metre - 86 metre range

[DirtWednesday]

Originally Posted by Biff

I say it will be more taller office towers. Social distancing will result in one office per floor buildings. Wawanesa will re-jig their proposal and build 15 - 100 storey buildings downtown for their 1,500 employees.

I had joked about this kind of thing a couple months back. That since most offices are in a 15-25% capacity sort of thing, they'll have to build/lease 3 or 4 times as much commercial space. Whammo! Commercial boom!

[Wpg_Guy]

My company downtown has 112,000 sq2+ of office space, 450 employees, they are spending half a million on covid measures. So far they have requested people return to the office but have not forced it.
There are definitely more employees back in the office based on the parking lots being full again.

[roccerfeller]

I suppose if all the true north towers combined into one mega tower we’d have the winnipeg version of that santec tower in edmonton lol...some 95 storeys of freakishly tall and out of place but awe inspiring building on the prairies

[esquire]

Originally Posted by roccerfeller

I suppose if all the true north towers combined into one mega tower we’d have the winnipeg version of that santec tower in edmonton lol...some 95 storeys of freakishly tall and out of place but awe inspiring building on the prairies

That's kind of what the Stantec Tower is...an apartment tower and an office tower stacked on top of one another.

[wags_in_the_peg]

someone trying to flog land for another hotel in Airport district, across from Country Inn Suites on Route 90 b/w Wellington & Sargent. Considering mostly airport traffic would be using this hotel, I wouldn't think it's a good investment for a few more years.

https://www.winnipegrealestatenews.com/properties/listings/202023300

https://goo.gl/maps/KPdjUZqSLU84msLX9

[esquire]

^ On the other hand, I suspect if you bought the land today and got the ball rolling on development, it would probably open up right around the time that air travel was in full recovery mode in two years' time.

Super 8 is kind of weak offering though, I wouldn't expect to see a budget hotel built from the ground up out by the airport. Usually airport budget hotels are simply old, out of date former mainstream brands that get reflagged, i.e. an old Holiday Inn or some such is no longer up to par, so it becomes a Travelodge, Howard Johnson or whatever. Who flies in to Winnipeg and then heads for a Super 8? If nothing else, at least it would help spiff up that drab stretch of Route 90.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by esquire

That said, some provincial minister, can't remember exactly who, said something to the effect that the province may still require a good amount of office space to accommodate social distancing requirements moving ahead.

Personally I find that surprising with the current fiscal constraint minded government. Using the pandemic as a driver to push for a significant and permanent shift from office based worker to work from home with "any office" basically becoming the new version of "corner office". Reducing office space the all the associated costs (like office supplies) could be a meaningful way for the province to save money and have minimal other impacts as it shifts those costs to its employees.

Originally Posted by borkborkbork

This probably won't be the last pandemic, and WFH/remote work will likely persist in some form post-COVID.

Well this likely won't be the last pandemic, history shows this would be a once in a 100 years illness. Just like the 100 year flood of 99 there could be another event just around the corner or it might not happen for another 100 years.

That said work from home is likely a permanent shift. One of the first formal studies on the shift came from Microsoft. What they found is that employees daytime hours did dip off some but their evenings hours are up so significantly the overall impact is more hours being worked for the same pay and an overall increase in productivity. Granted it was an internal study and likely would be viewed as too small a sample size but it does show there could be more gains than losses in the shift. I know my own team is informally reporting similar to what the Microsoft study found.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by CoryB

That said work from home is likely a permanent shift. One of the first formal studies on the shift came from Microsoft. What they found is that employees daytime hours did dip off some but their evenings hours are up so significantly the overall impact is more hours being worked for the same pay and an overall increase in productivity. Granted it was an internal study and likely would be viewed as too small a sample size but it does show there could be more gains than losses in the shift. I know my own team is informally reporting similar to what the Microsoft study found.

My own experience is that I find productivity is unchanged on things that I do myself... where there is a noticeable change/slowdown is on things that require collaboration, or input from others, particularly higherups. There are fewer opportunities for informal hallway discussions, etc. Sometimes I am waiting weeks for feedback that would have taken a day or two in the past. Of course, the important stuff moves ahead as necessary, but the overall flow of work is a bit lighter than it was pre-covid.

I suspect that for people whose work is more self-contained, they probably barely notice any difference if they're working from home.

[trueviking]

That giant building in West Broadway is flying! Pre-fab wood construction so it arrived a few weeks ago and boom there it is.

[buzzg]

Amazing, need a lot more of those. Hopefully with some space for small neighbourhood retail.

[Only The Lonely..]

Originally Posted by trueviking

That giant building in West Broadway is flying! Pre-fab wood construction so it arrived a few weeks ago and boom there it is.

Holy Crap.. I actually spat out my drink upon seeing how quickly they built this.

Now just imagine if the boys building Winnipeg's new tallest building had visited 'Beaver Lumber' the night before and done the same. LOL

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Originally Posted by Only The Lonely..

Holy Crap.. I actually spat out my drink upon seeing how quickly they built this.

Now just imagine if the boys building Winnipeg's new tallest building had visited 'Beaver Lumber' the night before and done the same. LOL

This project went up fast. Must have had 24 hour security.

[Authentic_City]

Originally Posted by trueviking

That giant building in West Broadway is flying! Pre-fab wood construction so it arrived a few weeks ago and boom there it is.

Biked past this last night. Huge! It’s an imposing presence on that street - which is otherwise just a back alley.

[esquire]

What do you guys think the long term prospects are for a building like this? I get the impression that these types of multistorey wood frame buildings are not very desirable and they could turn out to be slum housing in 25 years once the new building sheen has worn off and they start breaking down a bit. It's so big that if it goes wrong, it could really drag down the neighbourhood.

Someone tell me that there's nothing to worry about here.