Hudsons Bay Building (Winnipeg) Redevelopment

[bomberjet]

In terms of the building itself. Best thing would be for it to be acquired locally and have some form of government subsidy to get it moving.

Seeing as Portage Place was able to get $40 million in commitments from the City and Province, I don't see why something similar can't happen here, based on the historical significance of the building.

[Biff]

I get that the money could be targeted at the building specifically for improvements, but that doesn't help the chains overall viability and ability to keep one store open over others across the country. I think it would have been a short term injection of money to prolong the inevitable.

[esquire]

The ship has sailed on the chain. I recall there were some government grants (can't remember which level, I think municipal?) provided to Eaton's downtown store in the mid 90s and it was for naught since a few years later they announced the store's closure anyway.

Government money for the building's redevelopment is fine, but government money for Hudson's Bay the chain would be wildly ill-advised.

[Danny D Oh]

Originally Posted by Hecate

Yes the company is losing money, but isn’t that all to do with the poorly thought out and executed expansion in to Europe. As far as I’m aware the downtown store still made a profit up until the pandemic. The bay isn’t going away anytime soon... they closed two stores as far as I’m aware... downtown Edmonton and Winnipeg. From what I’ve read their online sales are fantastic.

The company you're talking about doesn't even exist for almost 20 years. It's an American private equity fund that runs a chain of stores through a holding company.

[BAKGUY]

Originally Posted by esquire

The ship has sailed on the chain. I recall there were some government grants (can't remember which level, I think municipal?) provided to Eaton's downtown store in the mid 90s and it was for naught since a few years later they announced the store's closure anyway.

Government money for the building's redevelopment is fine, but government money for Hudson's Bay the chain would be wildly ill-advised.

I do believe Eatons received no help whatsoever. This is the first I have ever heard of it I worked there at that time and prior.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by BAKGUY

I do believe Eatons received no help whatsoever. This is the first I have ever heard of it I worked there at that time and prior.

I don't remember the details, but I think the City fronted some cash to Eatons to pay for building improvements in the mid 90s...maybe it was new windows? I seem to recall that it came up when the store closed a few years later... there was some criticism that the money was for naught since the store closed and the building was slated for demolition anyway.

Incidentally, I went by HBC today for the first time since the boards went up and geez does it look sad. I don't think we've ever had such a big boarded up building in downtown Winnipeg before. I wonder if HBC will keep paying taxes on it?

[1ajs]

they better not turn the heat off

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

In terms of the building itself. Best thing would be for it to be acquired locally and have some form of government subsidy to get it moving.

Seeing as Portage Place was able to get $40 million in commitments from the City and Province, I don't see why something similar can't happen here, based on the historical significance of the building.

As much as I am an admirer of heritage buildings, this seems like too much of a stretch. It's just not a usable building and it would be better to demolish it, in my opinion, rather than throw tens of millions of tax dollars to get it up to the point that it could be used in some marginal way. (If someone had a great idea and lots of money to execute it, then that would be wonderful, of course). They could then extend Graham through to Memorial Blvd., connecting the WAG with the busy Graham Avenue strip, and redevelop the site with something that responded to actual needs. Maybe they could even slightly re-route Memorial through the site and add some space in front of the WAG. I wouldn't do this without first having a commitment to a project that fit the importance of "The Mall" but it would probably be a more interesting opportunity than contriving to find a new use for a huge department store, as much as I love the building.

[trueviking]

Wow.

[esquire]

Andy6 is right, and the longer it sits empty the more that people will come around to that view.

It would be one thing if companies with money to spend were stepping up, but in this case every idea seems to be a variation of mainly government-funded projects along the lines of apartments on the upper levels, a museum and youth drop in centre on the lower levels or something like that... at a certain point it starts to feel like Weekend at Bernie's where you're spending money to try and make a corpse look alive.

I'd like to think that there is a reasonable case to be made for an office building conversion along the lines of the Eaton's Mail Order Warehouse, but no one seems interested. If there is no legitimate use for the building left then it's time to move on and get something good built there instead. Four modest sized projects that fulfill real needs is much better than one massive megaproject that, as Andy6 put it, is kind of contrived and is driven mainly by a need to pretend there is still a use for a massive old department store.

Eaton's was even bigger, but it got demolished and replaced by something relevant to 21st century Winnipeg... we all moved on. The same can happen with The Bay.

[1ajs]

cold turn it into a giant condo and split it up? into areas for residential and other uses

and if it takes 20 yrs to get it fully ocupied so what do it winnipeg style slow and steady

[Wpg_Guy]

Part of Starlights revised ask from the Federal government involves possible redevelopment of The Bay.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Wpg_Guy

Part of Star Lights new ask from the Federal government involves possible redevelopment of The Bay.

Starlight is really grabbing for the brass ring here. At this point why not just ask for another billion dollars of government money to build a NFL stadium at The Forks?

[GarryEllice]

Originally Posted by esquire

Andy6 is right, and the longer it sits empty the more that people will come around to that view.

It would be one thing if companies with money to spend were stepping up, but in this case every idea seems to be a variation of mainly government-funded projects along the lines of apartments on the upper levels, a museum and youth drop in centre on the lower levels or something like that... at a certain point it starts to feel like Weekend at Bernie's where you're spending money to try and make a corpse look alive.

I'd like to think that there is a reasonable case to be made for an office building conversion along the lines of the Eaton's Mail Order Warehouse, but no one seems interested. If there is no legitimate use for the building left then it's time to move on and get something good built there instead. Four modest sized projects that fulfill real needs is much better than one massive megaproject that, as Andy6 put it, is kind of contrived and is driven mainly by a need to pretend there is still a use for a massive old department store.

Eaton's was even bigger, but it got demolished and replaced by something relevant to 21st century Winnipeg... we all moved on. The same can happen with The Bay.

I think it's way too early to be considering that position, though. The store literally just closed three months ago. A bit soon to be saying "well, nothing's happening, better throw in the towel and tear her down".

It may take years for a productive reuse of the building to come to fruition, and I don't see a problem with that. Though it would be great if a temporary use to animate the ground floor space could be found in the interim.

[esquire]

^ Now that the store is boarded up it may serve as a bit of a motivating factor, but come on... we all knew that this store's days as a going retail concern were numbered probably for about the last 15 years. People having been trying to come up with ideas and plans for reuse for at least that long and nothing is sticking.

Maybe the plywood will get governments to loosen the purse strings a bit, but if developers weren't interested in 2015 I doubt they are going to feel much differently about it in 2021. Unless governments are willing to step in and absorb a far greater amount of the costs and risks, that is, which frankly I'm not sure is such a great idea... we already have one very costly government backed development across the street that we're trying to sort out.

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by esquire

Starlight is really grabbing for the brass ring here. At this point why not just ask for another billion dollars of government money to build a NFL stadium at The Forks?

No kidding sweetening the make believe to get to the honey pot!

[DirtWednesday]

Throwing in another wrench into the "demolish it club"... There is also a separately owned parkade that is married to the Bay. Demolishing the Bay in order to build something new will probably cost more than updating the existing building.

[T'Cona]

Originally Posted by GarryEllice

I think it's way too early to be considering that position, though. The store literally just closed three months ago. A bit soon to be saying "well, nothing's happening, better throw in the towel and tear her down".

It may take years for a productive reuse of the building to come to fruition, and I don't see a problem with that. Though it would be great if a temporary use to animate the ground floor space could be found in the interim.

There is no reason to even think the building will be demolished...at this point anyway. I think the effort is being made to redevelop the building, but based on the costs associated with this, our level of patience will need to increase, as this will indeed take some time with so many players involved behind the scenes.

[Kris22]

I honestly can't imagine the "demolish it" view gaining any traction for at least 5 years. I would say 5 years is a fair amount of time to wait for a viable proposal to materialize for a project of this scale.

[T'Cona]

I cannot imagine the city would grant permission to demolish the building anytime soon, and if a proposal was submitted for a tower to replace the building, it would have to be spectacular, and check off all the boxes.