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  #21  
Old Posted Feb 10, 2017, 3:08 AM
DowntownBooster DowntownBooster is offline
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Originally Posted by biguc View Post
You can thank the general strike for that. The '20s were a good time for skyscraper building everywhere but Winnipeg. It took 10 years for people to decide this city wasn't just a bunch of irate commies ready to sink any investment (a real concern in those days) and by the time the paleo-Richardson building above came along, the Great Depression was just around the corner.
I think the completion of the Panama Canal also played a role in halting development in Winnipeg. There likely would have been a lot more of those buildings here had it not been for those events (World War 1, Panama Canal, etc.) occurring within the same decade.
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  #22  
Old Posted Feb 10, 2017, 1:42 PM
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Originally Posted by OTA in Winnipeg View Post
Winnipeg got a lot of great buildings in its early growth days and thankfully has managed to keep a good percentage of them intact. It gives Winnipeg a distinct feel to it that many Canadian cities could learn from.
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  #23  
Old Posted Feb 10, 2017, 2:48 PM
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Originally Posted by biguc View Post
You can thank the general strike for that. The '20s were a good time for skyscraper building everywhere but Winnipeg. It took 10 years for people to decide this city wasn't just a bunch of irate commies ready to sink any investment (a real concern in those days) and by the time the paleo-Richardson building above came along, the Great Depression was just around the corner.
Really just around the corner. Demolition started for the Richardson Building on October 12, 1929. Black Tuesday was October 29.
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  #24  
Old Posted Feb 12, 2017, 2:24 AM
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Originally Posted by OTA in Winnipeg View Post
a fine Deco example
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  #25  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2019, 2:32 AM
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Originally Posted by Wigs View Post
I don't see how anyone can be negative towards Winnipeg with all the development currently taking place.
Peg City is light years ahead of the Queen City when it comes to high rise living and new build high rise residential


I made another comparison of buildings constructed (or under construction) since 2000.


Plus, Winnipeg has 300 Main, SkyCity, Sutton Place Hotel and other developments in the pipeline.
What's this comparison like now?

I imagine it will be similar
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  #26  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2019, 3:38 AM
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Back then, there were 20 buildings total since 2000 - 12 in Winnipeg and 8 in Buffalo. Currently there are 26 - 17 in Winnipeg, 9 in Buffalo.
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  #27  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2019, 1:54 PM
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Originally Posted by DowntownBooster View Post
I think the completion of the Panama Canal also played a role in halting development in Winnipeg. There likely would have been a lot more of those buildings here had it not been for those events (World War 1, Panama Canal, etc.) occurring within the same decade.
Ah, the tired old Panama Canal myth...

Winnipeg was doing great and was the Chicago of the North before the Panama Canal happened. Okay, fine. So if the canal decimated the Chicago of the North, what happened to the real Chicago? (Or to Minneapolis, St. Paul, or other gateway cities?) Oh right, they resumed growing after about 1921 and built a billion art deco towers.
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  #28  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2019, 4:57 PM
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Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes View Post
I prefer the Continental Insurance Building in St. Louis...


Continental Insurance Building by (HomeInMyShoes), on Flickr

Winnipeg has a great selection of buildings, but it would have been nice to have something poking up in the skyline a bit more from that era. The US was just ahead of Canada, especially Western Canada when it comes to built form and population at that point in time. We have to remember that Buffalo around 1930 was over half a million people. Winnipeg was a quarter of that and St. Louis city was over 800,000.
Winnipeg had way more than 125,000 people by 1930. The reasons for the buildings not being taller were soil conditions, the lack of any really large tenants, and a widespread belief that tall commercial buildings were aesthetically out of scale and exemplifications of American vulgarity. Also, Winnipeg’s economic boom was in 1911-13, not the 1920s when taller skyscrapers were becoming more common and acceptable.
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  #29  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2019, 5:17 PM
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^ by the 1920's the soil conditions were worked out, at least as far as taller buildings went for Winnipeg.

As evidenced by the Hotel Fort Garry and the Leg.

Both buildings, IIRC are supported on caissons bearing directly on bedrock.

The one the Winnipeg really missed out on was the cancelled Richardson Building from the late 1920's- which would have been Winnipeg's example of the typical tall art-decoish office building that is found in many midwestern US cities, but notably absent here.
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  #30  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2019, 7:37 PM
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Air travel

Minneapolis and Chicago have established themselves as major air travel and distribution hubs.

Winnipeg remains a critical logistics and distribution hub, albeit mostly on the ground. We someohw missed the opportunity to become the Minneapolis of Canada.
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  #31  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2019, 8:03 PM
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Originally Posted by Wolf13 View Post
Air travel

Minneapolis and Chicago have established themselves as major air travel and distribution hubs.

Winnipeg remains a critical logistics and distribution hub, albeit mostly on the ground. We someohw missed the opportunity to become the Minneapolis of Canada.
In your opinion could Winnipeg establish itself as an air-based distribution hub? I mean in the long term if we have government and airport authorities that take the appropriate steps? Or are we simply to far gone and should focus on something else?
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  #32  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2019, 8:20 PM
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Winnipeg's location advantages are overstated, we're pretty damn far from the population on this continent.
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  #33  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2019, 8:34 PM
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Quite appropriately, the one major office building constructed downtown in the 1920s was built to house the headquarters of the provincial wheat pools, and later became the HQ of the Canadian Wheat Board. The changes in Canada's grain economy had far more of an impact on Winnipeg than the Panama Canal.

Add to this the effects of the Great War and recessions that kept away the British investment that paid for so much of the pre-war building in Winnipeg... in addition to the worldwide notoriety and local shock of the general strike... the old elites fading away, and the new generation of elites being comprised increasingly by branch managers rather than owners...

Not that Winnipeg didn't experience growth in the 1920s... the population increased by 22% in that decade, and an incredible amount of construction occurred throughout the city, particularly many new walk-up apartment buildings in older neighbourhoods, smaller commercial buildings on what are now the old main streets, and whole neighbourhoods built up. It's just a little conspicuous there's no gleaming art deco/gothic-inspired tower as a result.

It would be hard to substantiate a widespread belief against tall office buildings in Winnipeg (or Canada generally) before the 1960s or so, but I think there's something to what Andy6 says. Even during the boom era, in 1907, a proposal to build a 14-storey building on Main Street was opposed by the City's Board of Control and Mayor Ashdown, the latter of whom felt that there was no reason for buildings to reach higher than the Merchant's Bank (seven stories). Funny enough, this was the site where the wheat pool building went 20 years later.

Still, I don't think this aversion to skyscrapers was unique to Winnipeg among Canadian cities, or is a significant reason why Winnipeg didn't see tall buildings in the '20s. Even the stridently British Canadian cities like Toronto built the Sterling Tower and the Royal York.
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  #34  
Old Posted Apr 16, 2019, 10:12 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by optimusREIM View Post
In your opinion could Winnipeg establish itself as an air-based distribution hub? I mean in the long term if we have government and airport authorities that take the appropriate steps? Or are we simply to far gone and should focus on something else?
Not sure. the end destination would have to be close enough via truck, which chances are it isn't.

It COULD have been, but Calgary beat us to the punch, and internationally, so did Minneapolis. Both are now close enough to justify skipping us.

Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire View Post
Winnipeg's location advantages are overstated, we're pretty damn far from the population on this continent.
I'm not sure anyone overstates it... we are in a unique position that makes us useful, not untouchable. If it's cross country and staying north of the border, we're in a great spot. If it's international... well then we'd have to be a more useful destination than what's immediately south, assuming delivery is central.
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