Winnipeg Police Headquarters | Graham Ave.

[drew]

I say this with honest sincerity - that moving the City offices OUT of Fort Garry Place would likely do wonders for the moral of the people unfortunate enough to work in that POMO dungeon.

Plus, once they vacate, it would give Fort Garry Place the wake-up call needed to gut and reno that place.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by esquire

Why does this never get brought up? The city leases so much space for administrative functions in buildings owned by private operators (Confed Building, Bank of Hamilton, Fort Garry Place, crap Shindico strip mall on Pembina), yet somehow moving those functions into Canada Post and subleasing that space out never comes up. Are the terms of those leases that onerous?

Bowman and Morantz are looking to save money and this is spot on one way of doing that over the long term. As the people setting the budget you mandate that if there is surplus City owned office space all departments must move into it or find savings greater than their private lease costs. Sure there would be a one time hit on the cost side in terms of renovation, moving and lease buyouts but over say 10 or 20 years they would surely realize a savings over the private leases and carrying costs for what is reportedly an extremely difficult to lease or sell WPS Tower.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by CoryB

Sure there would be a one time hit on the cost side in terms of renovation, moving and lease buyouts but over say 10 or 20 years they would surely realize a savings over the private leases and carrying costs for what is reportedly an extremely difficult to lease or sell WPS Tower.

Maybe this WPS paranoia over who ends up in the Canada Post tower might have the unintentional side effect of benefitting the city in the long run by forcing it to move departments in there.

I mean, what else can they do? It would be the height of insanity to demolish this tower which the city now owns and which could easily house numerous civic departments while continuing to lease space all over downtown.

[BigG]

Originally Posted by esquire

Maybe this WPS paranoia over who ends up in the Canada Post tower might have the unintentional side effect of benefitting the city in the long run by forcing it to move departments in there.

I mean, what else can they do? It would be the height of insanity to demolish this tower which the city now owns and which could easily house numerous civic departments while continuing to lease space all over downtown.

There is a bright side to everything, a silver lining in a dark cloud - and that my friend, can be one of the best things to happen in this gong show.

[BigG]

Originally Posted by drew

I say this with honest sincerity - that moving the City offices OUT of Fort Garry Place would likely do wonders for the moral of the people unfortunate enough to work in that POMO dungeon.

Plus, once they vacate, it would give Fort Garry Place the wake-up call needed to gut and reno that place.

Wake-up call indeed. Totally agree with all of the above.

[esquire]

From today's headlines I gather that the push is on to sell the tower... apparently it needs a lot of work. I guess the WPS will just have to learn to live with neighbours on their block.

I wonder what would be likely to happen with the tower? I'm guessing it doesn't have much appeal as office space... what about a residential conversion? At a quick glance, the somewhat skinny floorplates seem reasonably suited to condos. And with Skycity/300 Main going up nearby, it could really help build residential critical mass on Graham. Or would the thought of random people living next door just make the WPS' collective heads explode?

[CoryB]

I think residential would be a complete non-starter. If WPS have (legitimate) security concerns over commercial tenants they would be even higher for straight market residential units.

That said, if WPS had approached the new HQ in a thought out manner the more sensitive units would be closest to the core of the old warehouse and get less sensitive as you move towards the edges.

It also would have made sense for the WPS to have looked into putting all their public facing sides into the tower. So for example the window to apply for a criminal records check, and likely the support staff there, would be in the tower. The police museum, etc. With some design work they could have also structured movements between the tower and the warehouse at controlled points. That said the design is done and not something we can change now.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by CoryB

I think residential would be a complete non-starter. If WPS have (legitimate) security concerns over commercial tenants they would be even higher for straight market residential units.

That said, if WPS had approached the new HQ in a thought out manner the more sensitive units would be closest to the core of the old warehouse and get less sensitive as you move towards the edges.

I think you're bang on. It's too bad that residential is out of the question because the tower seems reasonably well suited to that function, at least in terms of floor layouts and footprint size.

[drew]

I have a really hard time imagining that this is truly an issue (the proximity of a private building against the new station).

This is the WPS we are talking about here. Not Scotland Yard.

Just put all the truly sensitive meeting/conference rooms on the other end of the building.

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by drew

I have a really hard time imagining that this is truly an issue (the proximity of a private building against the new station).

This is the WPS we are talking about here. Not Scotland Yard.

Just put all the truly sensitive meeting/conference rooms on the other end of the building.

Ah man, but they'd have to spend another $80M re-designing the building, buying new furniture, budgeting.. Oh man. lol I don't know if they could handle the work. jk

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by drew

I have a really hard time imagining that this is truly an issue (the proximity of a private building against the new station).

This is the WPS we are talking about here. Not Scotland Yard.

Just put all the truly sensitive meeting/conference rooms on the other end of the building.

The physical security of the police hq to bombs, intrusions, and other attacks is a real concern, to the point the exterior reportedly needed "bomb proofing" and the concrete barriers needed to be temporarily installed to keep vehicles from crashing into the building even though that was never an issue for Canada Post.

In terms of the design and taking into account the sensitive nature of specific operations, I am not saying it did not happen but if for some reason it was missed early on it could be difficult and expensive to solve at this stage.

As for how "realistic" the threats are, there are definitely reports of intrusions happening by gaining access to an adjoining property which provided time to work on the breach out of the public view. It is usually a robbery related activity but in the post 9/11 security sense police stations and their holding cells are given a higher level of consideration.

[rkspec]

The city has put out a tender for someone to remove a 45,000 sq ft. diesel fuel tank buried underneath the old Canada Post Building on Graham Avenue.

http://www.cjob.com/2016/07/14/more-...st-be-removed/

[robertocarlos]

It's more likely a 45,000 litre tank.

[CoryB]

The question is was that diesel tank from the old Canada Post operations or was it installed by the police and being removed as part of their basement flooding remediation.

[Riverman]

Old most likely. Modern gensets run on natural gas.

[bomberjet]

Why wouldn't they remove the tank when reno's were occurring. Now Police are moved in and they need to remove a large buried tank? It's not overly large, but still.

[cllew]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Why wouldn't they remove the tank when reno's were occurring. Now Police are moved in and they need to remove a large buried tank? It's not overly large, but still.

The emergency generator it served was apparently was still in use up to the start of last winter, so they did not want to take the tank out then and then have to come back this summer and finish the paving repairs.

Easier to do the whole job in one shot.

Unfortunately MB govt regulations do not allow tanks to be abandoned in place even though that was a fairly new double wall fiberglass tank put in if I recall in the last 10 years. I remember watching it go in from the skywalk.

[biguc]

Originally Posted by esquire

I think you're bang on. It's too bad that residential is out of the question because the tower seems reasonably well suited to that function, at least in terms of floor layouts and footprint size.

But what if they did make it housing, just for police. I know it's unpopular in this town to suggest that the people working fort the city making money off the city actually live in it but there's real value in having police live in the communities in which they work.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by biguc

But what if they did make it housing, just for police. I know it's unpopular in this town to suggest that the people working fort the city making money off the city actually live in it but there's real value in having police live in the communities in which they work.

You'd never ever get cops to live downtown next to the HQ. Unless maybe you gave the units away for free. And even then it would be a hard sell.

First of all, few people generally desire that type of arrangement judging by how rarely people live next to their workplaces.

Second of all, police have a weird subculture where it's popular to live as far out of the city as possible. Even living within the city in an outer suburb seems to be frowned upon. You have to live in Niverville, Oakbank, St. Andrews or some such and park your motorcycle in a big double or triple garage. At least that's how it is with the cops I know.

[biguc]

And that's pure bullshit. How are you supposed to maintain a social contract with the people you're supposed to serve and protect when you can't even condescend to living amongst them?

It's not that unusual for cities to require their employees live in the city. Chicago does. London even goes as far as trying to get their police to live in the neighborhoods they work in. I'm not down with city employees doing a shitty job because they can't be fucked about some city they don't actually live in, and I'm not down with them fleecing the local economy.