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Winnipeg’s changing skyline is a recipe for growth

Photo provided by Downtown Winnipeg Biz.

The last time Winnipeg’s skyline had a meaningful change—201 Portage was christened the city’s tallest building in 1991—the postcard industry scrambled to ensure the new image was available to send far and wide. Not so this time around.

Now that construction crews are putting the finishing touches on 300 Main, the 42-storey residential apartment building that has assumed the title of the tallest structure between Calgary and Toronto, the city’s new skyline pops up regularly on countless social media feeds.

You can always go downtown

But the $140-million brainchild of Artis REIT, the Winnipeg-based real estate investment trust, is doing more than causing strained necks among office workers and tourists—it’s changing the fabric of downtown as we know it. When it’s fully open next winter, it will be home to approximately 1,500 residents—the biggest residential building in town by far—and its impact will ripple throughout the central business district and the entire city.

“It’s very important that we focus on density,” says Kate Fenske, CEO of the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ (Business Improvement Zone). “We can’t keep spreading out in our city. It costs more to do that. A big project like 300 Main is significant, not just as an option for people to live, but it supports the overall efficiency of our city.”

Photo provided by Artis REIT

”A big project like 300 Main is significant, not just as an option for people to live, but it supports the overall efficiency of our city.”

“For decades, it was rare to see a crane in our downtown. In the last couple of years, you could look in any direction and see four to six cranes working on projects. That shows the confidence in our economy and in the community,” she says.

(It also shows that Winnipeg has come a long way since former premier Gary Doer used to joke about the building crane being on the province’s endangered species list.)

Indeed, Artis hasn’t been operating in a vacuum. Just a few blocks away, True North Square has been a hive of activity since before cutting the ribbon on the first of five buildings in 2018. When the $550-million mega-project is completed next year, it will comprise office space, commercial space, apartments, condos and a hotel. 

Other projects include Timbercreek Asset Management’s conversion of the old Medical Arts Building on Kennedy Street to residential, the doubling of the RBC Winnipeg Convention Centre, ongoing improvements to Canada Life Centre, the home of the Winnipeg Jets, and upgrades to the Burton Cummings Theatre.

The decision to construct an apartment building rather than another office tower was made to fill a need in Winnipeg’s burgeoning downtown, says Jeff Lukin, director of marketing at Artis. 

“Nothing in Winnipeg is easy but we know that our history is rising above challenges. In Winnipeg, it’s a testament to a committed private equity sector to try and make a difference. It’s driven by the need for a return and by the community. There are good and committed people here. We have to keep the engine positive,” Ludlow says.

“300 Main offers a really convenient location to live for downtown workers and to the amenities that downtown offers. That was a driving factor,” he says.

Of course, if you’re going to spend $140 million, you might as well get the cool nickname, too. “Being the tallest building between Calgary and Toronto was extremely important to us,” he says. 

“Becoming a landmark, a beacon in Winnipeg’s downtown and across the Prairies is a big deal. It sets 300 Main apart from the other (skyscrapers) and other apartment buildings. I don’t think there’s another apartment building that offers the services and amenities that we offer, not the least of which is the view from the 40th floor. It’s a view nobody has had before.”

“You see Winnipeg’s tree canopy across the city. There are some stunning views as far as the eye can see. It’s spectacular.”

The plan is for 300 Main to welcome tenants on the first 20 floors this spring and open up the top 20 floors next winter. The 40th floor will be a multi-purpose space for tenants and include a games room, a theatre, vintage arcade games, reading nooks, a pool table, shuffleboard plus two outdoor patios. (The patios will be located within the building’s footprint and will be enclosed by six-foot-high glass.)

Artis isn’t reinventing the wheel by any stretch as modern downtown apartment buildings are a staple in big cities across North America. “Winnipeg is no different. People want the option of moving somewhere where they’re not shovelling eight feet of snow in the winter,” Lukin says.

While some Winnipeggers may have been surprised to see the construction cranes at 300 Main the last couple of years, Lukin says it has been on the books for about four decades. The original plan was to build it shortly after its sister building, 360 Main, was erected back in the late 1970s. “Then the ’80s happened and the second tower never got built. It was always the intention that it would be built,” he says.

Cautiously optimistic

Jim Ludlow, president of Canada Life Centre, says 300 Main and the plethora of other construction projects around downtown complement each other, including the one that effectively kick-started everything—the Canada Life Centre (formerly the MTS Centre) in 2004. “I think things have been pretty good, but growth can be fragile and cyclical,” he cautions.

Indeed, it’s not all days of wine and roses in the central business district. There are two very significant challenges facing all stakeholders—the nearly-century-old former home to The Bay at the corner of Portage Avenue and Memorial Boulevard and Portage Place shopping centre. The former has been shuttered since late 2020 while the latter has been beset for years with underwhelming traffic numbers, excessive vacancy and a reputation for criminal activity.

“Nothing in Winnipeg is easy but we know that our history is rising above challenges. In Winnipeg, it’s a testament to a committed private equity sector to try and make a difference. It’s driven by the need for a return and by the community. There are good and committed people here. We have to keep the engine positive,” Ludlow says.

Just what happens with those two challenges remains to be seen but Portage Place is back at Square One after a highly publicized deal to buy it fell through recently.

300 Main may even play a role in one of the most divisive issues in town—the concrete barriers that have closed off Portage and Main to pedestrians since the late 1970s.

In a 2018 plebiscite, Winnipeggers voted 65 per cent to keep the city’s most famous intersection closed. A map of the vote breakdown showed that the majority of people of maintaining the status quo lived miles from the downtown core. 

“The people who spend time downtown want to see Portage and Main open,” Fenske says. “If we have more people walking and moving around downtown, I don’t see how they could not be opened up.”

(It could all be a moot point. Reports from late 2018 indicated that the barriers may have to be torn up regardless because the waterproofing that protects the businesses in the underground concourse has completely deteriorated.)

Walk of life

300 Main is the latest piece of the puzzle in downtown Winnipeg’s “15-minute neighbourhood,” Fenske says. That means having everything you could possibly need within a 15-minute walk, such as parks, shopping, eating out, entertainment and your workplace.

Policy makers and stakeholders need to continue to rethink the future of both Winnipeg and the downtown, she says. The sentiment is moving away from the traditional central business district towards a central gathering district. “How do we adapt and support that shift so we can have a vibrant downtown? The connectivity and mobility of people is critical in that. That ties in to why opening up Portage and Main is important,” she says.

Even though company officials had previously said that the fifth building at True North Square, the under-construction 19-storey home to Wawanesa Insurance’s North American headquarters, was to be its last, Ludlow says they probably spoke too soon.

“We’ve got some ideas. We’re not done. We’re always up for a challenge. That’s, in part, how you define how you get somewhere in Winnipeg. It’s a challenge.”

“We’ve got our eyes open on a couple of things. We’re watching. You need to have a creative mind and it has to be collaborative,” he says.

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