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  #61  
Old Posted Aug 12, 2017, 4:59 PM
buzzg buzzg is offline
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It's unfortunate that in MB we essentially have a 2 party system that are both at the extreme ends of the spectrum (in Canadian terms).
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  #62  
Old Posted Aug 12, 2017, 11:04 PM
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What can be done to save Portage Place?

Is the only option to wait for enough people to live downtown to necessitate it?

Any grand ideas for it?

I thought I read somewhere it was going to be a kind of government office / services mall. Not a bad way to fill it 9 - 5 but then we're stuck with the inevitable evening downtown exodus.
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  #63  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 12:40 AM
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^ It's gradually evolving into an office building/service centre (government offices, social services, professional services). I can see the day coming where the only retail left will be the food court and a few cell phone kiosks.
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  #64  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 3:07 AM
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^ It's gradually evolving into an office building/service centre (government offices, social services, professional services). I can see the day coming where the only retail left will be the food court and a few cell phone kiosks.
And the cell phone places could just as easily be moved to City Place and make Portage Place a full office place.
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  #65  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 3:11 AM
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And the cell phone places could just as easily be moved to City Place and make Portage Place a full office place.
The Food Court could be turned into a couple of restaurants or something similar, just like Grant Park circa 1999.
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  #66  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 5:48 AM
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Unless the TNS magically resuscitates this thing, it's better off becoming an office block. Or they could do the Vancouver thing and stack a bunch of condos ontop of it .
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  #67  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 6:20 AM
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Take down the middle glass portion and divide it into 2 separate buildings with a fresh reclad. Reattach the regular street grid and build some towers on top of the foundation pads. The promenade behind pp should start to pick up once the street is put through and maybe we can start develop the vacuum between downtown and the exchange.
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  #68  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 6:21 AM
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Unless the TNS magically resuscitates this thing, it's better off becoming an office block. Or they could do the Vancouver thing and stack a bunch of condos ontop of it .
Yes, indeed. I liked when it had McNally Robinson at the Mall, but it is long gone. The only time I ventured in Portage Place was after a workout at the YMCA or I had to pick up something at Staples or Shoppers Drug Mart.
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  #69  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 4:22 PM
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I too miss the Mcnally Robinson. Moving to Polo Park was an obvious mistake at the time, but they got their comeupance sooner than they deserved.

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Take down the middle glass portion and divide it into 2 separate buildings with a fresh reclad. Reattach the regular street grid and build some towers on top of the foundation pads. The promenade behind pp should start to pick up once the street is put through and maybe we can start develop the vacuum between downtown and the exchange.
This is roughly my take. I probably wouldn't push Edmonton street through, but I would open the centre court to the outdoors, maybe leaving the glass roof in place. I'd also replace the windows on the front of the food court with rolling overhead doors to open that space to the street in mild weather. The part of the mall west of Edmonton I'd close and convert to offices, with the remaining retail oriented towards Portage or Edmonton.
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  #70  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 4:55 PM
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Centralize the mall into the area located in between Edmonton and Kennedy, with ground floor retail/food court and offices on the upper floors. Demolish, or renovate the eastern (food court) and western wings (Staples) and open the way for development on those locations. A Glasshouse-like condo or apartment tower would be nice at each end.
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  #71  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 5:04 PM
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I too miss the Mcnally Robinson. Moving to Polo Park was an obvious mistake at the time, but they got their comeupance sooner than they deserved.
The Polo Park McNally Robinson was a success.

Unfortunately the Toronto store they opened at the same time was a fiasco. And it had the same landlord, Cadillac Fairview. They couldn't break the contract at one without leaving the other.
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  #72  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 6:06 PM
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Maybe it was a successful location, but the move came at a time when downtown was climbing out of the basement, and was also part of a broad expansion into several markets at a time when book retail was slumping and a recession was around the corner. I'm not sure I buy your excuse for the Polo Park location closing, but even if what you say is true, they still made a poor choice moving into PP and taking on a lease like that. They also burned up a lot of good will by leaving downtown; in the midst of their big expansion they were looking like a home-grown success that might buoy downtown into the future. Until they bailed on downtown.
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  #73  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 7:01 PM
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^ Once McNally left downtown I stopped giving a crap where I buy books... indigo.ca with pickup at the Cityplace Coles is usually how it plays out for me these days.
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  #74  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 7:07 PM
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Maybe it was... I'm not sure I buy your excuse... but even if what you say is true...
Grow up.

My wife was working in McNally Robinson's accounting closet at the time. The current owner still owes me money for engine parts. I stand by what I wrote.

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...at a time when book retail was slumping...
This I can agree with. I was already on my third ebook reader in ten years (starting with the Palm Pilot), and they were getting better all the time. My wife had a Windows tablet. To me at least, the future wasn't looking good for book stores.

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and a recession was around the corner
A recession is ALWAYS around the corner. As people were already pointing out back in 2014, "We are statistically closer to the next recession than to the last one."

In any case, a recession would have affected the Portage Place store too. More so, since at the time it was filled more with high-end boutique stores

Or have I misunderstood this thread, and it's really about the post-recession roaring success of Portage Place?

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they still made a poor choice moving into PP and taking on a lease like that.
Again, the location was a success. It's the Toronto location that was the fiasco.

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They also burned up a lot of good will by leaving downtown
With you personally. But not with all the people who found it easier to get to Polo Park.
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  #75  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 10:21 PM
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The Polo Park McNally Robinson was a success.

Unfortunately the Toronto store they opened at the same time was a fiasco. And it had the same landlord, Cadillac Fairview. They couldn't break the contract at one without leaving the other.
When I was in Calgary, there was a McNally Robinson on Stephen Avenue, and it was a great place to chill, and had a coffee shop on the top level. Unfortunately it closed nearly a decade ago as well. Shame, really. Is the Grant Park location still in business?
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  #76  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2017, 10:31 PM
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When I was in Calgary, there was a McNally Robinson on Stephen Avenue, and it was a great place to chill, and had a coffee shop on the top level. Unfortunately it closed nearly a decade ago as well. Shame, really. Is the Grant Park location still in business?
Grant Park is still open.
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  #77  
Old Posted Aug 14, 2017, 12:14 AM
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insults, confused rambling, clear ignorance of what Portage Place was like in 2009, claiming that tablets existed in 2009
I don't know why I keep engaging with you. At least we can all rest assured that you will live downtown in the near future. But groceries will be the least of your problems when they lock your senile ass up in one of Rivera's hellish care homes.
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  #78  
Old Posted Aug 14, 2017, 1:22 AM
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I like the idea of opening Portage Place up a bit. The area around Central Park has really improved the last few years, but being so segregated from the rest of downtown likely holds it back from getting even better. Connecting it to greater downtown by opening up PP could really help it out.

I wouldn't mind if PP went to mostly office/service mall. Then you could close off the mall-side entrances of the CRUs fronting Portage (and hopefully fix the Promenade-facing ones), so at street level you have active CRUs, that don't have to deal with multiple entrances.
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  #79  
Old Posted Aug 14, 2017, 3:10 AM
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I don't know why I keep engaging with you.
It gives you an opportunity to be wrong and childish in public.

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...claiming that tablets existed in 2009
The first commercially successful tablets had already been around for a decade by then.

Windows XP Tablet Edition was released in 2002. HP, Gateway, NEC, Fujitsu and a variety of lesser-known brands sold tablets running it through the 2000s.

In 2007 we picked up a Gateway E-295C Windows tablet. Like most smartphones and tablets then and now the handwriting recognition wasn't worth the effort, but it made an excellent ebook and document reader. And it had a fold-out keyboard for use as a regular laptop.



And yes, I know quite well what Portage Place was like over the years, though not so much in the last five or six. I occasionally visit Staples, but not much else.
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  #80  
Old Posted Aug 14, 2017, 5:16 AM
LilZebra LilZebra is offline
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I too miss the Mcnally Robinson. Moving to Polo Park was an obvious mistake at the time, but they got their comeupance sooner than they deserved.
And then a few short years later, the McNally family completely abandoned the brand they created.
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