Future Winnipeg High-Rise Projects

[BAKGUY]

Originally Posted by Luisito

Every time I am driving and get a quick glimpse of the skyline I imagine a new tallest building in the area where skycity centre was going to be. I would really like to see something go up 416 Main soon.

I am with ya. Let'd dream it to become a reality. 416 Main and The former proposal site for Skycity are begging for skyscrapers to add to our skyline.

[buzzg]

Apparently Harvard is still pushing the city to try and expand their parking lot toward the Pal, but in an effort to raise money as they develop new plans for a high rise on the site in a few years.

Don't have any detail beyond that, but it came from someone relatively close to the situation that I trust. This was over the weekend.

[BigG]

Originally Posted by BAKGUY

I am with ya. Let'd dream it to become a reality. 416 Main and The former proposal site for Skycity are begging for skyscrapers to add to our skyline.

I would love to see a tower rise at the corner of Smith, Ellice & Notre Dame. You know the corner, and the shape to reflect the lot. That would be quite the orgasm.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by BigG

I would love to see a tower rise at the corner of Smith, Ellice & Notre Dame. You know the corner, and the shape to reflect the lot. That would be quite the orgasm.

Yes, not quite as prominent a site as the one north of the TD Tower, but it has the potential to be an incredible project... the site shape could generate an amazing design, and it would play a big part in strengthening the connection between the Exchange and the rest of downtown. I would love to see something happen there.

But as for the TD Tower, buzzg's comment about Harvard wanting surface parking to help pay for a new development sounds like it came out of the mouth of a sleazy used car salesman... I'd be pretty surprised if the City fell for that one. Tell 'em to have a bake sale instead... I'll buy a dozen muffins.

[TimeFadesAway]

Originally Posted by buzzg

Apparently Harvard is still pushing the city to try and expand their parking lot toward the Pal, but in an effort to raise money as they develop new plans for a high rise on the site in a few years.

Don't have any detail beyond that, but it came from someone relatively close to the situation that I trust. This was over the weekend.

Sure, the 500K that would bring in over the next five years is the difference between building and not building a multi-million dollar tower.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by TimeFadesAway

Sure, the 500K that would bring in over the next five years is the difference between building and not building a multi-million dollar tower.

It's pretty clear that increasing the revenue generated by the lot would make a tower just that much less likely.

[bomberjet]

Seems like Harvard came into Winnipeg with little experience of the local market. They want to demo the heritage building that is the Palimino. Want more surface parking downtown. I wonder what else they are thinking.

[BAKGUY]

Originally Posted by BigG

I would love to see a tower rise at the corner of Smith, Ellice & Notre Dame. You know the corner, and the shape to reflect the lot. That would be quite the orgasm.

If it were at least 15 floors +, it would be quite a stunning building and if more than 20 floors, impact the skyline some.

[Bdog]

Originally Posted by TimeFadesAway

Sure, the 500K that would bring in over the next five years is the difference between building and not building a multi-million dollar tower.

Almost as unbelievable as the claim that if Portage and Main didn't open, it would jeopardize the future development of that site.

[Winnipegger]

I know this thread is about future highrise projects in Winnipeg, but I thought that in order to better understand the future it might be helpful to look at the past. Specifically, I wanted to see how Winnipeg's population growth correlated with highrise development (for the purposes of this post, that's buildings 10 storeys and over).

While what I learned is probably known to most around here, I found it very interesting. It seems like the bulk of Winnipeg's highrise boom occured between 1965 and 1989, or when Winnipeg's population was between 500,000 and 600,000. It's a similar story for office building construction. Following that, construction seemed to level off quite a bit, likely due to the 1990's being a less economically-prosperous time and population growth slowing to a crawl.

Most people here will argue (I think?) that highrise construction is going to be primarily driven by market factors, such as price to construct, return on investment, opportunity cost of building elsewhere, and the general state of the economy. However, this misses one important piece, which is the demand for space, which is mainly a factor of population growth. Winnipeg's population absolutely boomed following WWII, growing by almost 180,000 people between 1945 and 1965. I think it took a while for highrise construction to materialize in response to the population boom, and I think you'll see this lag is evident in the graphs below. Even as population increased but at a slowing rate in the mid 1970's, highrise construction was still going steady which may be a result of the preceding population boom, both in office and residential.

So what does this all have to do with the future? I think that highrise construction in Winnipeg, both in residential and office sectors, has a lagged effect. It might take 10 to 15 years for the market (on aggregate) to respond to changes in population. We all know Winnipeg was rather stagnant in the 1990's. But right now, Winnipeg is absolutely booming (in comparison to the past). Why?

1. From 1990 to 1999, Winnipeg's population grew by slightly less than 10,000 people
2. From 2000 to 2009, Winnipeg's population grew by slightly less than 30,000 people
3. At the current rate of growth, from 2010 to 2019 Winnipeg's population is on track to grow by more than 100,000 people

We are growing about 10 times faster now than we were in the 1990's. Now, more people move to Winnipeg in a year than during the entire decade of the 1990's. That's a massive change.

So when we're talking about highrise construction, I don't have a crystal ball or anything but I think we're going to see a significant change within the next 10 to 20 years in the Winnipeg. While I wouldn't promise any "new tallest" or Vancouver-style glass pillars, currently Winnipeg is growing at one of the fastest rates in it's history, and it will probably take time for the market to respond to this if the past is any indicator.

Take a look at the graphs below for the lag in population and highrise construction I'm talking about. Note that I measure highrise construction in terms of cumulative floors built in buildings 10 storeys or taller because that's the info that's available on the skyscraperpage database and that's the unit of measurement that best represents how the state of the market is changing in relation to population. I know it's not a perfect measurement (especially since it doesn't take in to account building size, just how many storeys it is) but it's as good as it's going to get with the current data available. This also doesn't look at the midrise sector since that data isn't availble, and perhaps preferences have changed so that people desire smaller buildings in Winnipeg. But I still think this is an interesting exercise!

[buzzg]

Very interesting

[Andy6]

The office market has experienced structural changes, though. There is a lot of outsourcing of functions and in it is common for tenants to be reducing their Class A space needs as a result, even though the businesses are doing well and growing as far as their core functions are concerned. There is also a certain inelasticity in the market to consider - just because the population of Winnipeg grows by 50%, it doesn't mean that there are suddenly 50% more banks, national accounting firms and law firms that drive big office projects. The relationship between population and office tower demand is probably pretty weak - e.g. compare the office space in Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa - three cities that are roughly the same size.

[Winnipegger]

Originally Posted by Andy6

The office market has experienced structural changes, though. There is a lot of outsourcing of functions and in it is common for tenants to be reducing their Class A space needs as a result, even though the businesses are doing well and growing as far as their core functions are concerned. There is also a certain inelasticity in the market to consider - just because the population of Winnipeg grows by 50%, it doesn't mean that there are suddenly 50% more banks, national accounting firms and law firms that drive big office projects. The relationship between population and office tower demand is probably pretty weak - e.g. compare the office space in Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa - three cities that are roughly the same size.

I don't doubt that the demand function for office space has changed considerably since the 1960's. Office work has become a lot more efficient so you need less people to complete the same volume of work which means that you need less space. So I don't expect there to be a surge in office tower construction in Winnipeg anytime soon or ever. And most Canadian corporations have trended towards centralization, placing their head operations mostly in Toronto, Calgary, or Vancouver instead of decentralizing and having significant operations in most cities.

However, that doesn't change the fact that as population grows, people will need someplace to work and not all employers are going to choose an industrial park or pre-exisiting exchange district building. I doubt there's going to be massive developments in the class-A office space sector, but again, Winnipeg's population (and therefore workforce) is growing at a rate unseen since the 1950's, which is quite different than the trend observed in the 1990's and early 2000's.

But I think the analysis still strongly applies to residential development. It probably won't be as drastic since infill and mid-rise developments seem to be popular, but I believe there will be some significant high-rise apartment or mixed-use developments within the next 20 years.

[borkborkbork]

Originally Posted by buzzg

Apparently Harvard is still pushing the city to try and expand their parking lot toward the Pal, but in an effort to raise money as they develop new plans for a high rise on the site in a few years.

Don't have any detail beyond that, but it came from someone relatively close to the situation that I trust. This was over the weekend.

"We're going to fund a skyscraper with revenues from occasional parking fees"

[roccerfeller]

Very interesting post Winnipegger.

Winnipeg's population growth will hit its own momentum at some point. Basically once it gets to that 900k mark, the growth will start to take care of itself, as it is sort of already doing.

Conversely to Ottawa, Edmonton and Calgary, Winnipeg is a unique situation where it benefits as the primary and central market in the region and also the largest market between other primary markets.

Calgary though is in its own unique situation too, as is Edmonton with the oil and Ottawa with national capital status but I'm speaking specifically to Winnipeg's advantages, as It's one of the reasons Winnipeg has more head offices than either Ottawa or Edmonton

I think we will see a steady stream of these over the next decade with at least some crane somewhere in the downtown area consistently. They are not rare creatures anymore! Come to think of it, since MB Hydro it seems Winnipeg has had a nice stream of development.

Its pretty mind boggling to think how its grown 10x this past decade what it did in the 90s

[Luisito]

I drive through downtown everyday and I can't help notice how many "for lease" or "office space available" signs I see on buildings. There seems to be a lot of office space available so this leads me to believe we won't being seeing any new office towers anytime soon.

If we do get a new office high rise, I hope its at this spot on main. I think its 416 Main. This lot needs to be filled up.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.89647...7i13312!8i6656

[esquire]

I wonder if there has been any tire kicking by developers on 295 Portage, AKA Dollarama?

The reason I ask is because:

-It's a good downtown SHED location close to MTS Centre, and not too far from Portage and Main
-It's across from Centrepoint
-All that sits on the site is a 25+ year old single storey big box store which is probably fully depreciated by now and nearly worthless relative to the value of the land
-Unless things have changed recently, it's owned by a company (Gendis) that has successfully pitched one of its other Portage Avenue sites for an office building in recent years, i.e. the former Metropolitan/Red Apple store where Manitoba Hydro Place stands today

I realize the lack of a corner location is a bit of a hindrance, but it does seem like an appealing place for a development of some sort.

[DancingDuck]

Originally Posted by esquire

-All that sits on the site is a 25+ year old single storey big box store which is probably fully depreciated by now and nearly worthless relative to the value of the land.

It seems strange to me that with all the surface parking lots downtown, most of the new developments have replaced existing buildings instead of filling empty lots...does anybody have any thoughts as to why this is?

[Authentic_City]

I'm pretty sure it's been said before that there are no 'vacant' lots downtown. There are parking lots that generate revenue and pay low taxes. And the owners of these lots don't want to sell because they're waiting for a big payday, so it's just cheaper and easier tear down an existing bldg. Frustrating.

[esquire]

^ Yeah, pretty much that. A surface parking lot can be a pretty profitable enterprise when you factor in steady income, minimal overhead and low taxes.