WINNIPEG| The Exchange District |Market Lands Redevelopment

[trueviking]

[WinCitySparky]

Wow!

[Winnipeg Grump]

Originally Posted by buzzg

Yeah it's hard to be upset with a private homeowner tearing their house down to build a new one. There's so many teardown and rebuilds in north River Heights, and a lot of them are stunning. Apart from one or two that made the news 10 years ago, there's lots of really modern ones that fit in the fabric of the street beautifully. The northernmost 2 blocks of Borebank especially have seen some gorgeous new builds in the last few years.

Take a look at Centennial north of Corydon the next time you're in the area.
10+ of the 2-story narrow homes either under construction or completed in the last year or so, plus a number of other rebuilds. My neck hurt from snapping left and right as I drove up there the other day!

[buzzg]

Yeah it’s a good thing IMO. Especially since it tends to be some of the smaller/lower end/less well maintained ones that are getting replaced with new builds. Wellington aside.

[Wpg_Guy]

05/03/2020

https://twitter.com/WestEndCassidy/s...331687938?s=20

[blueandgoldguy]

What an oppressive building. If you painted the Public Safety Building black it would fit right in in Mordor.

[esquire]

Normally I'm all about 1960s buildings but to me, the PSB really doesn't hold any appeal at all. It's big and boxy which is kind of cool, but beyond that it just looked like a tarted-up warehouse. I could have lived with it being fixed up and kept in place, but at the same time I don't think I'll miss it either.

[Boreal]

Dr. Evil’s prairie lair is coming down. Perhaps if it were in a different location I’d like it better.

[WinCitySparky]

Hideous indeed

[dennis]

It looks like a radiator, or a heat sink for a cpu.

[Authentic_City]

Say what you will about the aesthetics of the old PSB, knowing what we now know about the 'new' WPS headquarters boondoggle, I really wish the city had just paid the money to renovate the old building. Love it or hate it, I think the old design suited the purpose of the building well and probably was a very solid structure - much moreso that the second hand fixer upper we have now. But, here we are.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Authentic_City

Say what you will about the aesthetics of the old PSB, knowing what we now know about the 'new' WPS headquarters boondoggle, I really wish the city had just paid the money to renovate the old building. Love it or hate it, I think the old design suited the purpose of the building well and probably was a very solid structure - much moreso that the second hand fixer upper we have now. But, here we are.

Oh for sure, in hindsight I think anyone would have taken a renovation over the Katz/Sheegl WPS HQ disaster. I wonder if the City could have expanded with a new building on the barren plaza north of the PSB on King to provide more space for the WPS ? If so, that might have done the job.

[Authentic_City]

Yes, what could have been, I suppose. It's just funny (sad funny) to think that cost was how the old post office was sold to Winnipeggers. Hey, it'll be cheaper. We can't reno the old PSB because that'd be too expensive. Haha.

Hopefully the new development will be an improvement over the old PSB. While it brought lots of daytime workers to the Exchange (and possibly a feeling of safety for some), it won't be half as good as a decent residential/mixed use development. I say decent. No more wind-swept plazas please.

[drew]

Originally Posted by Authentic_City

Say what you will about the aesthetics of the old PSB, knowing what we now know about the 'new' WPS headquarters boondoggle, I really wish the city had just paid the money to renovate the old building. Love it or hate it, I think the old design suited the purpose of the building well and probably was a very solid structure - much moreso that the second hand fixer upper we have now. But, here we are.

Why not have both?

Despite the political experience with the new WPS Headquarters, the building was available and is uniquely suited to the WPS needs (central location, integrated indoor vehicle storage, building designed for heavy use occupancy).

The Public Safety parkade was essentially condemned and needed to come down, but there was nothing necessarily preventing the re-use of the public safety building itself. However, often it can more expensive to try and re-use and existing structure than simply knocking it over - especially needed to redo the entire exterior shell.

Also in terms of building "quality" there is nothing to me to suggest either the PSB or the current WPS headquarters would be considered better than the other. They are probably about the same.

[Biff]

This was the proposed renovated PSB - $68mil.

[Authentic_City]

^Nice. For 68 million, I'd definitely take that over the current WPS hq.
^^I can't speak to the overall condition of both structures, but I hear through folks working in the new building that there have been lots of problems and many things that were promised during the design have not panned out. For sure, it's great that a use was found for the old CP building, but I think WPS did not get a superior functioning building and the cost was much greater than a reno of the older structure.

[drew]

Originally Posted by Authentic_City

^Nice. For 68 million, I'd definitely take that over the current WPS hq.
^^I can't speak to the overall condition of both structures, but I hear through folks working in the new building that there have been lots of problems and many things that were promised during the design have not panned out. For sure, it's great that a use was found for the old CP building, but I think WPS did not get a superior functioning building and the cost was much greater than a reno of the older structure.

Does that 68 million include demo and rebuilding a new parkade?

And is that $68 million an accurate price considering the pricing shenanigans that went into the current WPS headquarter renovation?

Who knows.

At the end of the day, we avoided a giant hole along Graham and allowed for the PSB building to be put out of its misery, to be reborn as something better.

Despite the costs, it's a win win IMO.

[Authentic_City]

The old CP bldg was not purpose built as a police headquarters building and as a result, the building had/has a number of significant security deficiencies that added extra costs. I'm assuming many of those issues would not have been present in a reno of the old PSB. But fair enough, there may well have been cost overruns and unforeseen expenses with the reno -- also not sure if the parkade was factored into price quoted by Biff. So, as I said before, here we are -- for better or for worse. I do think the WPS is probably wishing the city had just built something new from scratch after all these issues and cost overruns. I suppose you could look at it as a win-win, but it depends what ends up replacing the old PSB site.

[Biff]

The $68mil did not include the parkade. The parkade had not been condemned at the time the original PSB redevelopment plan was touted.

The proposal was to completely gut the building down to the concrete structure and remove all of the exterior facade. Im sure the redevelopment/demolition/new construction of the parkade would have added an extra $50mil or so to the overall budget.

[Authentic_City]

^Ah, thanks Biff. Not sure what the final cost tally on the CP post reno ended up being, but perhaps it would have been in same ballpark as a reno of the PSB. Oh well, what might have been!

Edit: $214 million, instead of the orginal $135 million estimate. Wowsers. I forgot the magnitude of the cost overruns...

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...yers-1.4733138