Biff, Drew, Optimus, everyone else who has mentioned the atrium are right. That's what should happen. The high ceilings offer an amazing opportunity for creative residential spaces. Maisonette apartments. Look at the windows; you could inset an entire balcony behind just one of them. The building is massive, and its potential is immense
Some may table some perverted, Winnipeg economics where the cost of demolishing the building and building new is less than the value of the building that already exists, therefore...
That might be enough to convince someone that you all, as citizens of Winnipeg, ought to end up worse off than you are. But you shouldn't accept it. Whether you do is up to you.
In the Canada section, I've put forward what I call the Polish standard: if Poland, a relatively poor and dumpy country with a similar population to Canada can pull something off, why can't Canada? I'm too drunk right now to look up the numbers, but Winnipeg's per-capita GDP is multiple times Poland's. It's at least double. Maybe close to three times as large.
There's a city dead in the centre of Poland called Lodz. Its central location makes it a "transportation hub". It is, nonetheless, a dump. They experienced catastrophic economic and population decline in the '90s and 2000s. They pull off infrastructure and adaptive reuse projects that embarrass Winnipeg. I invite you all to investigate and visit. It's not a beautiful place, but it is a place that will make you wonder why Winnipeg can't do better.
As a final point, before I run away from the trolls, I hope you all consider something beyond what's strictly commercially viable. There is another way.
Some of you may know this building in Berlin. It's the old GDR Ministry of Statistics. In the '90s, right after reunification, it was slated to become a commercial development. A crafty artist stuck up some official looking signs that said it would become space for artists and affordable housing. That left the city in a bind; nobody was impressed with what the city actually planned for the building given that it could be something better. It sat vacant for 30 years. Now, it's becoming what the people wanted, and the city is set to rent space from the building as they renovate it. joshleimer is right; the city archives could rent space in the building, and the community could use the rest of the space for studios and events.
Winnipeg used to do this kind of thing in the '90s all the time. It's why the Exchange District still exists. When did everything become about demolition or deep-pocket development?