Winnipeg Police Headquarters | Graham Ave.
 

Now that the Winnipeg Police Service is set to move into their digs in December, I'm just thinking if there are already plans on what to do with the former site. Someone must know or heard of rumours concerning this area. Seems like the perfect time to develop this prime and historical piece of real estate - tucked in in the heart of the Exchange and flanked by Chinatown, RRC and City Hall. Can somebody, kindly, throw us a bone?

There's a more than 100 year old caveat on the title that has the land reverting back to the original family that gifted it to the city unless it is expressly used for the public benefit. In other words, it has to be a government institution of sorts - it doesn't specify. But from what I understand of it, it can't be sold. It can only be assigned for the purposes of a qualifying public agency in the pursuit of the public good.

The Police HQ debacle just seems to get worse with every issue, doesn't it?

I heard that some of the City Halls offices are moving there temporary, when City Hall is being renovated.

If only the city were in a position to replace the PSB with a civic administration complex to centralize the various civic offices scattered around town. I'd love to see a new 10 to 15 storey building on the PSB's footprint.

That would actually be great. Unfortunately, you'd hollow out a few places they're the only tenants, but whatever.

There's also the issue of historical significance here. The heritage community has tried to have the building listed as an important representation of brutalist architecture that should be protected, so there's that for what it's worth.

Truthfully, the city just needs to retrofit the thing and get on with it. For what members of the civic service are doing, it's perfectly fine. If they can do it in a windowless strip mall or equally dreary bunker on Fort, they'll manage to push paper there with equal efficacy.

Actually, preserving the PSB and converting it into civic administration space would be pretty good too, but I thought retrofitting was cost-prohibitive?

Which places would take the hardest hit if the City left? The Hamilton Building on Main would be nearly empty... surely Artis could line up new tenants? Fort Garry Place's office space would take a hit but frankly, who cares?

I guess my comment is driven mainly by Edmonton-envy given that they're building this to accommodate civic staff. And their city hall is not even 25 years old!

http://vipmedia.globalnews.ca/2014/0...2&h=448&crop=1

Source:globalnews.ca

The City offices in Fort Garry Place just seem to suck the life right out of me whenever I visit. Couldn't imagine working in there.

Who knows, maybe a nice new building with lots of glass and natural light would help City staff do their jobs better - which in the end, would help us all!

I thought the PSB upgrades where only cost prohibitive if it remained the police hq as it required extra levels above the standard building code, like being harden against a bomb, etc. A conversion to civic office or the RRC space would be a possibility.

It would seem to short term plan now as a light renovation to allow the relocation of the city hall staff while their own complex is renovated. This could be the first hint that RRC is not taking on the building, at least in the short term.

Separately though, if the Civic Centre Parkade is an unsafe building and remediation too costly why don't they bring in the dynamite and get rid of it already.

PSB renovation and conversion to office space would be great... the building is good and it has architectural merit, so keeping it around would be for the best. However, the parkade clearly needs replacement... I think it's quite reasonable for the civic centre to have its own parkade.

So if the city chooses that option, the PSB block won't look that much different than before... a renovated PSB and a new replacement parkade.

I'd love to see that lousy park north of the PSB filled in with some appropriate development, though. Can that be done or is there something underneath which prevents that?

Just a few additional facts on the PSB form earlier studies in 2014 at the cost of aprx: 275 K

$40 Million to refurbish for any other uses..exterior cladding,etc.. No choice but to: (demolish the parkade and remediate the site)

Reg: the Land usage deed: 1/3 of the parkade and structure must go to civic use as mentioned above
Anything North of the building up to James St can be sold or used for private use.

Awesome.

So why the hell has that site never been developed? It just irks me... it's the anti-Old Market Square. Devoid of life all year round except for a small handful of summer noon hours when a middle aged secretary might leave her office to sit on a bench and read her novel.

The. Worst.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...g_Winnipeg.jpg

Source: Wikicommons

I Agree Esquire: It's been dreary waste of space since I can remember living in the Exchange on Princess as a teen while most of the area over the last decade has been seeing somewhat of a re-birth and renaissance.

Why? Who knows. A lack of will from City Hall until it became apparent the building and parkade was falling apart around them? Most likely scenario..

The plot actually holds all of the public safety building, the city hall council building, and a portion of the civic parkade. I'm guessing there's just enough of everything sitting on the title with the caveat to make transfer of the property a very difficult practicality...

I think much of the police underground parkade is under that lot.

That was what I suspected, although I couldn't be sure.

Preserving the PSB is a great idea and I would bet that the cost overruns over the intial budget to refurb. it would be no greater than $50-60M, beside the city is awash in cash we can afford everything!:rolleyes:

Heh heh... why so cynical? ;)

It's hard to remember when something done by the city of Winnipeg was done right, on time and without a cost overrun! Really sad actually.

Oops, I forgot that the city just bought a big office tower that's vacant at the moment... I guess it won't be building anything anytime soon.

Did the city ever consider just putting civic departments into the former Canada Post Building and just pulling out of the leased space it currently occupies?

An excellent idea that seems to make sense so I doubt it will ever happen. After all, who will move into the privately owned Fort Garry Place offices if the City moves out? We wouldn't want to have full taxpayer owned buildings while private landlords are left with vacancies.

LOL. I guess it would be hard to pry the employees away from the old-world architectural splendour of Fort Garry Place.

Is it Milan or Winnipeg?

http://downtownwinnipegbiz.com/wp-co...-winnipeg5.jpg

Source: downtownwinnipegbiz.com

Pretty sure the city re-upped a bunch of leases before Katz walked out the door...

Of course...

Maybe Fort Garry Place can take another run at being an upscale mall...

That is a bloody shame. Btw, thanks for your insight and info. Always appreciated.

The primary duty of the state is to fill vacant space--especially streetfront retail--in order to keep rents too high for any uppity small businesses.

Probably didn't take much to get (buy)a deal from slippery Sam and his band, probably as little as a meal a year at the revolving restaurant in Bergen's poorly conceived faux Euro aberration!

It's an ugly eyesore of a building.

Putting people in there again now, when the bldg. surely needs demoing will just delay the sites redevelopment.

Sorry, heritage nuts. The old PSB is not worth saving.

It was literally falling apart before our very eyes.

Time for something different on the site.

Except that there's more value to the city - and consequently the taxpayer - to keep the building intact and productive. If there weren't a restrictive caveat on the property, I might encourage the city to explore the options that might exist out there. But as it is, that's not really a practical consideration.

Also, the PSB looks like it's from a dystopian sci-fi and is, therefore, awesome.

Logan's Run?

Just thinking out loud. I wonder if there is a legal process by which the city can absolve itself of that caveat? I just think that, in the grand scheme of things, development of that area is vital to the future of Winnipeg's core.

Only the party that has filed the caveat can opt to have it removed. If they're not co-operative in that respect, the city would have to challenge the original terms under which the property transfer took place.

There was some discussion reg: this matter some time back. The City could pursue the legal interpretation of the word "public", after the Ross family descendants were consulted of course,a private sale to any party is not possible but RRC could fall under the term "public institution" and the property could be sold to them.

As long as they develop the site, what's the downside to turning the land back over to that family? Let them pay to tear down the PSB.

My guess is that they'd gladly let the city keep the land when they realize the cost to get it to a point where a developer would even be interested.

The city put the PSB up, they would be obligated to take it down.

Inside look at the new over-budget, delayed Winnipeg police HQ

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manito...e-hq-1.3364652

I particularly liked the historical museum, the weight room, and combat training area..can't wait for a tour.;)

Now comes the question, again, what's going to happen to the old digs? AND what will they do with the Canada Post portion on the new site?

^ Are you in favor of demolition or renovation of the PSB location to start BigG?

40M+ reno or demo to turn it into a park

i'm for the reno

Either, or - as long as it's put to good use. The one thing I don't want to see is the building and parkade sitting empty for years making the area a dead zone. The big hurdle is the caveat placed by the original owners of the property discussed earlier in the thread. It has to be public use. Definitely not a park though.

Perhaps RRC could move into it? UofW? Those would be "public" uses.

Not sure about UofW but I don't think that RRC has the money to do any more renovations after what they spent across the street on the Patterson project.

Oh Selinger...

It really sucks that the entire main floor is a blank wall for 3 sides of a block. And the design already looks dated to me.

but probably fits into the "disaster survival" that has to be built into new police stations now.

For example driving by and shooting into a brick wall does less damage than driving by and shooting out a glass fronted police station.

The cash never seems to stop flowing for RRC. After Patterson they are working on the Skill Trade building of some sort on their Notre Dame campus. They have also talked very little about their relatively new power to grant degrees. I suspect some more programs are in development on that front. It also seems that Notre Dame is going to focus more on the skill trades and the Exchange more on the office type of education. It is possible more programs will shift to the Exchange to backfill the Public Safety building. Perhaps if the new degree/programs falls through RRC could spin up some sort of vocational education high school program at the Notre Dame campus similar to the U of W Collegiate.

Makes sense... the province (like most provinces, I suppose) badly neglected colleges and the trades-oriented programming they offer for decades. By many accounts there is an undersupply of people with the kinds of skills RRC provides, so it's understandable that RRC will continue to be expanded.

Personally I'd love to see the PSB block get a new RRC building (which would really boost the critical mass of the downtown campus). I would have also said that a new City of Winnipeg office building would make good sense too, but I guess with the ex-Canada Post white elephant on their hands they should pull departments out of leased spaces and put them into that tower instead.

Putting them into that tower would make to much sense. City may aswell sell it for $1 and try to recoup off taxes for who ever buys it. Otherwise I am sure it will sit vacant for decades and turned into a parking lot.

2 options.

1. Sell it.
2. Tear it down, sell the land.