Hudsons Bay Building (Winnipeg) Redevelopment

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Kris22

I honestly can't imagine the "demolish it" view gaining any traction for at least 5 years. I would say 5 years is a fair amount of time to wait for a viable proposal to materialize for a project of this scale.

I sure hope you're right. The defeatist attitude by some so soon after closure is concerning. The Met sat for what 25 years before being renovated? And 18 years for the Union Bank Tower. Thank goodness we still have them rather than some nondescript boxes or vacant lots. Once they're gone, they're gone. Still regret 60 years after demolition of the old City Hall which could have been preserved even if a new civic centre had been built nearby. I can't imagine what demolishing the Bay would do for Winnipeg's psyche. The building's situation on a key corner and combined with its Beaux-Arts beauty anchoring the vista down the Mall makes it much more valuable than the Eaton's building ever was. Lacking very much natural beauty, Winnipeggers need to be more cognizant of preserving urban vistas and the general aesthetic and start understanding that our stock of historic buildings is the best feature of the city, most especially the downtown area. The overpasses on Portage Avenue are horrific and obliterate the once amazing and incredibly unique view out Portage when standing in front of the Bank of Montreal.

Other cities have suffered closures of large downtown department stores and have had success in re-purposing, though in varying spans of time. The key is patience and a commitment to ensure maintenance.


Kaufmann's, Pittsburgh

https://www.post-gazette.com/busines...s/202004020088

Dayton's, Minneapolis

https://www.thedaytonsproject.com/

Rich's Atlanta, known now as the 1924 Building, turned into part of a federal government office complex. That's a possibillity, could the Bay be re-purposed with retail, esp. food oriented retail (How about a FreshCo?, that would be the store to meet the demographics, students and lower income) on the main level and used for the CRA on the upper floors. If Winnipeg is going to serve the Western Region on its own given the population growth will there not be a need for additional space besides the Stapon Road facility? And then you bring more workers, and a percentage of them would choose to live nearby, downtown to support existing downtown retail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich%2...partment_store)

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by esquire

Andy6 is right, and the longer it sits empty the more that people will come around to that view.

It would be one thing if companies with money to spend were stepping up, but in this case every idea seems to be a variation of mainly government-funded projects along the lines of apartments on the upper levels, a museum and youth drop in centre on the lower levels or something like that... at a certain point it starts to feel like Weekend at Bernie's where you're spending money to try and make a corpse look alive.

I'd like to think that there is a reasonable case to be made for an office building conversion along the lines of the Eaton's Mail Order Warehouse, but no one seems interested. If there is no legitimate use for the building left then it's time to move on and get something good built there instead. Four modest sized projects that fulfill real needs is much better than one massive megaproject that, as Andy6 put it, is kind of contrived and is driven mainly by a need to pretend there is still a use for a massive old department store.

Eaton's was even bigger, but it got demolished and replaced by something relevant to 21st century Winnipeg... we all moved on. The same can happen with The Bay.

I can tell you with 100% certainty, the building is going nowhere. It has been empty for two months for goodness sake. Eaton's was wood frame and was not well suited to re-use. and honestly if it were not for the happenstance that we needed an arena and the property was owned by the richest man in the country, it would probably still be there.

This building will be redeveloped.

Having a giant empty site doesn't make that property any more attractive....and it would probably cost the government as much to take it down as it would to subsidize a redevelopment.

Patience, everyone. It will find a new life. It's not as insurmountable as many here seem to believe. In the past the Bay wanted $20 million for the building. That is likely no longer the case. Now that the Bay is actually gone, things will come together.

[1ajs]

always amazes me that our downtown store outlasted so many closures till covid came along

[zen-kz]

We need to change our downtown to be a better place live and it will create a demand for such huge department store as The Bay building. So let it sit empty for a couple years and invest money to downtown. The top concern is safety and the solution can be: lights, camera, action. I.e. light up downtown at night by adding more lights to sidewalks, historical buildings, and add light installations and sculptures. Adding cameras will allow to prevent crime or identify and arrest criminals. All this will not only make criminals to feel uncomfortable but also bring more people there at night, which is the final part of success - we need to bring people to downtown and organize festivals, events and more action. Once safety is there we can add schools and playgrounds, narrow and pedestrianize streets, plant more trees and here you are.

[bomberjet]

haha when you're in the midst of something, it feels like eternity.

Remember when the country was falling apart and going to be taken over by China because the railways were partially blocked for 2 weeks.

[Labroco]

Originally Posted by T'Cona

I cannot imagine the city would grant permission to demolish the building anytime soon, and if a proposal was submitted for a tower to replace the building, it would have to be spectacular, and check off all the boxes.

1) I think The Bay will stop paying taxes.
2) I think they will drain the water pipes and shut off the water.
3) I think they will turn off the heat.
4) I think the guy who owns the parkade in Toronto has no interest in The Bay building even for a dollar.
5) I think the City will take it back for realty taxes. (Think Five Roses Mills on Higgins which was demolished 20 years ago with dynamite).
6) I think it will be given to Centre Ventures and the board of directors to deal with.
7) I think the City of Winnipeg will be floating a $100,000,000 Bond!

[Labroco]

Originally Posted by zen-kz

we need to change our downtown to be a better place live and it will create a demand for such huge department store as the bay building. So let it sit empty for a couple years and invest money to downtown. The top concern is safety and the solution can be: Lights, camera, action. I.e. Light up downtown at night by adding more lights to sidewalks, historical buildings, and add light installations and sculptures. Adding cameras will allow to prevent crime or identify and arrest criminals. All this will not only make criminals to feel uncomfortable but also bring more people there at night, which is the final part of success - we need to bring people to downtown and organize festivals, events and more action. Once safety is there we can add schools and playgrounds, narrow and pedestrianize streets, plant more trees and here you are.

yes!

[trueviking]

Most likely the bay will be handed to the city or province for nothing...if a redevelopment plan doesn’t surface shortly. But I’m confident one will. It will take contribution from al three levels of government likely. Similar money given to the portage place guys from the city and province would probably do it. There is likely more political will today than there has been in the past.

It’ll happen. It’s not an insurmountable challenge. The building is sturdy and it’s concrete structure makes it very flexible for redevelopment.

[EdwardTH]

Originally Posted by zen-kz

We need to change our downtown to be a better place live and it will create a demand for such huge department store as The Bay building. So let it sit empty for a couple years and invest money to downtown. The top concern is safety and the solution can be: lights, camera, action. I.e. light up downtown at night by adding more lights to sidewalks, historical buildings, and add light installations and sculptures. Adding cameras will allow to prevent crime or identify and arrest criminals. All this will not only make criminals to feel uncomfortable but also bring more people there at night, which is the final part of success - we need to bring people to downtown and organize festivals, events and more action. Once safety is there we can add schools and playgrounds, narrow and pedestrianize streets, plant more trees and here you are.

Umm, lights are nice but what's really needed is an actual strategy to tackle social issues in the city.

[pspeid]

Originally Posted by trueviking

Most likely the bay will be handed to the city or province for nothing...if a redevelopment plan doesn’t surface shortly. But I’m confident one will. It will take contribution from al three levels of government likely. Similar money given to the portage place guys from the city and province would probably do it. There is likely more political will today than there has been in the past.

It’ll happen. It’s not an insurmountable challenge. The building is sturdy and it’s concrete structure makes it very flexible for redevelopment.

For proponents of downtown re-development, the recent closure of The Bay combined with what looks like the imminent demise of the PP redevelopment deal have been pretty big emotional hits. I know it's difficult not to get discouraged, as these two site represent what could be argued as the core of west downtown.

When the PP redevelopment seemed to be a go (and I know it's not officially cancelled but It seems like it would take a miracle to save the Starlight proposal) I thought redeveloping PP would drive the redevelopment of The Bay. IMO I think it' possible a positive and energetic redevelopment of The Bay could be incentive for another developer to look seriously at PP. The Bay and Eaton's were, I believe, originally seen as anchor stores for PP. With The Bay re-developed, PP would have BellMTS Centre and whatever form The Bay takes as attractive "anchors" for some ind of mixed residential/commercial PP.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by trueviking

I can tell you with 100% certainty, the building is going nowhere. It has been empty for two months for goodness sake. Eaton's was wood frame and was not well suited to re-use. and honestly if it were not for the happenstance that we needed an arena and the property was owned by the richest man in the country, it would probably still be there.

This building will be redeveloped.

Having a giant empty site doesn't make that property any more attractive....and it would probably cost the government as much to take it down as it would to subsidize a redevelopment.

Patience, everyone. It will find a new life. It's not as insurmountable as many here seem to believe. In the past the Bay wanted $20 million for the building. That is likely no longer the case. Now that the Bay is actually gone, things will come together.

I hope you are right. But I am looking at this not through the lens of the store being closed for two months, but through the lens of the store's closure being anticipated for decades now and still no viable proposals have been floated for it. We've known for nearly 20 years that this store's demise was imminent... in some respects it lasted longer than I expected it to. However, it feels like we're no closer to seeing something happen in there than we were in 2010.

I agree that it is not an insurmountable challenge... provided that the demand for the space existed. A year ago we were talking about Skip the Dishes possibly building a big office building... find a company in expansion mode like that and suddenly half of The Bay is spoken for. If residential demand were high enough this would be a perfect candidate for conversion. But no one is stepping up.

I am fine with waiting for a while with a boarded up behemoth at one of our city's most prominent intersections... I'd give it a year or three. At some point you have to cut bait, though.

[Biff]

I get that, as you say we have known about the demise of the downtown bay for years but, I don't think I understand the correlation to there being no serious re-development proposals since it only officially closed a month or so ago.

It's not like there would be multiple developers drawing up plans when there was no definitive closure date. These kinds of things are fairly time sensitive. I think the clock has now been started and there are people investigating options as we speak. If we are in this same boat 5 years from now I would be concerned, but not yet.

[esquire]

^ We've been hearing rumours about behind the scenes machinations for some time now, as I recall HBC was shopping the building around, looking for someone to buy it. At one point U of W was rumoured to be interested as were other organizations. Never any takers though.

This is not a situation where business was going strong and everyone was blindsided by the store's closure. We all could see this day coming for quite some time. But that said, I hope you're right and that something will happen now that it's finally closed.

[Jeff]

no one is mentioning the now zombie 80's skywalk limb to nowhere between the bay and PP.. i know it connects to the Power Building as well, but will that be enough to even keep it open as things stand now?

[T'Cona]

I think we can all appreciate how much effort, money and time will be required redeveloping this building, and I am confident there is plenty of key players behind the scenes attempting to achieve this. We will have to have patience.

[thurmas]

i am not very confident in the redevelopment happening soon. we have brick and mortar retail dying globally, a provincial government in power who's voter base is rural manitoba, a downtown with severe issues of drug addiction and poverty that are only getting worse not better, a lame duck mayor for next 2 years and all 3 levels of government in massive debt due to the pandemic that will not have the resources to work on wish list projects such as this. i am very worried this could turn into another met theater or kapyong barracks that stay vacant for decades.

[cheswick]

Province announced a $25m trust to help develop the Bay building in it's new budget.

[esquire]

^ Interesting. That's about in the same ballpark as what the province committed to Starlight's Portage Place proposal.

[T'Cona]

Great news!

https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/i-was-el...ding-1.5378310

[trueviking]

This pretty much guarantees the building will be redeveloped quickly. Very good news.