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Originally Posted by buzzg
I think often that's from a lack of maintenance. Kind of a chicken-or-egg scenario.
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I think the issue is Place Promenade was heavily built on speculation that it could create a market for higher end rental units in downtown Winnipeg. As it failed to catch hold they started expanded the type of tenant they were willing to accept rather than having units sit vacant. This is turn effectively killed any up market hopes they had and started their slide down market. As they slide down market they had less money to spend on maintenance which in turn kept pushing them further down.
Quote:
Originally Posted by buzzg
I also think that this would make Artis want P&M open, if they don't already. You want to be able to sell a good, walkable, downtown lifestyle to people if you're asking suburban people to move downtown. Easier access to the Exchange is a huge benefit. This will also hopefully help Garry (and Fort), which I think has the most potential to become a "bar street" in all of downtown.
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First, the location of the purposed Artis tower is south enough from Portage and Main that there would effectively be an easy east-west crossing of Main St effectively out the front door. This would leave the main driver being easier north-south crossings of Portage Ave. Having walked that intersection for years the difference between Main and Fort to cross Portage is minimal. Going from this new tower to Concert Hall? Cross Portage at Fort, go to Main on the north side of Portage and cross at McDermot or Bannatyne. Opening Portage and Main to pedestrians almost exclusives benefits the very few properties on Portage Ave east of Main St. A block or two in either direction you have lots of other points to cross.
Instead of just focusing the bars on one street I think you would need to leverage aspects of what is available on both Fort and Garry between Portage and Graham to make it work. Sort of sad that this strip has actually lost suitable properties over that last 15 years but considering they were on the dive bar end of the spectrum it might not be the biggest loss.