PCL doing “open heart surgery” on former mall
PCL Construction’s crew at the former Portage Place Shopping Centre has years of experience building sports facilities, healthcare centres and manufacturing plants, and that experience is on full display as they tackle one of downtown Winnipeg’s most complex transformations.
For decades, Portage Place stood as one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks, drawing shoppers, office workers and visitors through its glass-covered atrium and busy corridors. Today, crews are carefully dismantling parts of that familiar structure – not to erase it, but to reinvent it. The workers behind the more than $650-million overhaul of the soon-to-be former shopping mall are applying the same precision to the deconstruction of its centre court as they are building out towers on the north and south ends.
Repurposing and recycling about three-quarters of the materials from the Portage Place site is what Kelly Wallace, Winnipeg vice-president and district manager at PCL, calls “adaptive reuse.”
For example, where an atrium once featured pedestrian bridges and skylights, a gaping opening now sits at the centre of the site. Creating that opening required crews to remove eight 75,000-pound concrete beams and dismantle the atrium roof using two of Manitoba’s largest high-reach demolition machines. Soon, the space will become the continuation of Edmonton Street, connecting the north and south sides of Portage Avenue and creating a new outdoor pedestrian corridor.
“You’re taking it apart with the intention of reusing a lot of it,” Wallace says. “So, you don’t just knock it down. It’s like taking a Lego set apart. You take it apart piece by piece so that you can reuse it.”
“We’re taking an old building and we’re revising it to reshape downtown. We’re reusing the existing foundation’s infrastructure, which is exciting because you get some value out of a depreciating asset. It comes with some challenges because you’re not demolishing the existing building, but you’re deconstructing it.”
PCL also removed the atrium slab and is replacing it with a bridge structure designed to support emergency vehicles once Edmonton Street is reopened through the site. The roadway will also serve as a one-way vehicle drop-off zone for the future Healthcare Centre of Excellence.
“That’s probably the most complicated piece because of all of the services running underneath through a duct bank that houses (fiberoptic) cable,” he says.
Supporting work of this scale is a tower crane, erected in April, that will play a major role in structural concrete work and material handling as the project begins to rise vertically.
“It’s a feat of engineering, which we take very seriously because doing it safely is the most important part for us,” he says.
The atrium is just one facet of the redevelopment, which will be a wonder of architectural ingenuity, engineering innovation and construction savvy and know-how, when it’s completed next year.
The 1.2-million-square-foot property will maintain a retail component – including a much-needed grocery store – but two major additions give it the potential to become truly transformative. They are: a 265,000-square-foot Healthcare Centre of Excellence, featuring primary care with integrated mental health services, surgery, diagnostics and renal dialysis, which will also become the new home for expanded Pan Am Clinic programs; and a 19-storey residential tower with more than 200 units, up to 40 per cent of which will be rented at “affordable” rates, well below the market rents for the area.
The Healthcare Centre of Excellence will feature, among other components, primary care, diagnostic imaging, kidney health facilities, surgical nano suites and include the world-renowned surgical tools of Arthrex, a U.S.-based orthopedic surgical tools company. Its founder, Reinhold Schmieding, was celebrated in May in Winnipeg as this year’s winner of the International Distinguished Entrepreneur Award (IDEA) by the Associates of the Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba.
The technology in this new facility is intended to rival that of the Cleveland and Mayo Clinics in the United States.
Since its founding in 1981, Arthrex has created more than 2,000 surgical tools used for knee and shoulder surgeries, which have improved the quality of life for millions of patients. One of those patients is Winnipeg Jets goaltender, Connor Hellebuyck, who underwent knee surgery using Arthrex technology last season.
Wallace is particularly proud to note that the ongoing overhaul of downtown Winnipeg is being driven almost exclusively by local companies, including True North Real Estate Development (TNRED), Southern Chiefs’ Organization (SCO) and the Manitoba Metis Federation.
“Local people are driving the revitalization of downtown. We’re buying assets that had been owned by people who weren’t from here and we’re making them our own. We’re repurposing them to make Winnipeg and Manitoba a stronger, more attractive place to live,” Wallace says. “I think it’s exciting to see how people are getting engaged with redeveloping downtown and how Manitoba-born people are leaning into making downtown a place that people want to go.”
Jim Ludlow, now president of TNRED, was the head of True North and Entertainment Inc. during construction of what is now known as Canada Life Centre, widely regarded as the primary catalyst for growth in the central business district since rising from the ashes of the old Eaton’s department store and opening as the MTS Centre in 2004. PCL Construction served as the lead builder on that project.
“The campus redevelopment of the property once known as Portage Place is one of numerous projects that are remaking Winnipeg’s downtown. It’s a privilege to lead this historic revitalization and I can’t wait to see it all come together by 2028,” he says. “Working alongside a truly world-class construction company such as PCL means the delivery of a healthcare facility for Manitobans that is meant to be just that – world class.”
PCL is also the lead builder for SCO’s $310-million redevelopment of Wehwehneh Bahgahkinahgohn, the century-old former Hudson’s Bay building. The shuttered department store’s 655,000-square-foot heritage landmark is being transformed into a mixed-use development featuring nearly 400 residential units, a childcare centre as well as retail and office spaces.
Portage Place is only one piece of a much larger story unfolding downtown.
The Fort Garry Hotel recently completed a more than $1-million upgrade to its first floor, creating high-end accommodations catering to high-net-worth travellers. Similarly, the Richardson family, owners of the Fairmont Hotel, has temporarily closed the Portage and Main property while it undergoes a multi-million-dollar renovation.
Across Winnipeg’s most famous intersection, the Manitoba Métis Federation is currently converting the historic Bank of Montreal building into a major cultural and heritage hub, which is set to open next year.
Just a stone’s throw away at confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, the first phase of Railside at the Forks, a multi-million-dollar development featuring 350 residential units within nine apartment blocks and one condo building, is coming out of the ground. The European-flavoured project will have amenities such as a daycare centre, coffee shops and pedestrian-friendly walkway.
Construction is also well underway on the 17-storey Sutton Place Hotel, the fifth and final tower of the $550-million True North Square on Carlton Street.
Another recent addition to Winnipeg’s skyline is Wawanesa Insurance’s new national headquarters, a 21-storey mixed-use office tower that opened its doors two years ago at True North Square. The landmark building was also constructed by PCL.
“It doesn’t happen overnight. It happens one piece at a time, one project at a time,” Wallace says. “It’s one person or one group believing in it. There are people who are leaning into it and believe in it. We can feel the momentum.”
And as downtown sees more traffic, the more existing businesses will grow, and the more others will choose to relocate there.
“The downtown of the city is the heart of the province, and we’re doing open heart surgery right now,” he says.
Wallace says there may never have been more optimism about the future of downtown Winnipeg than there is today.
“It feels like there’s more energy downtown, and it feels like it’s growing,” he says.
And when the ribbon is cut on the new-and-improved Portage Place in 2028, he says PCL and other downtown stake holders aren’t going to rest on their laurels.
“When you see people putting money into downtown, like you see with Portage Place, you look around and say, ‘what other assets in the area can be reimagined?’” he says.
“This is going to continue to be the topic of discussion. ‘What do we do with this building or what about that flat parking lot?’ I think it’s just starting to open up. What’s possible? Let’s find out.”
