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Council gives green light to big-box project anchored by IKEA store

By: Bartley Kives

25/03/2009 11:23 AM | Comments: 15

City council has given the green light to the Tuxedo Yards Redevelopment, the 80-hectare big-box project that will be anchored by a 350,000-square-foot IKEA store.

Council voted 14 to two to approve a complex plan to convert industrial land at Sterling Lyon Parkway and Kenaston Boulevard into mix-used commercial land that will be built out over the next nine years.

The project may eventually see up to seven additional big boxes, numerous smaller retailers, a 100-room hotel, 500-unit condo building, 150,000 square feet of office space and a 16-screen movie theatre join an IKEA anchor store between 2011 and 2018.

The plan will see developers Fairweather Properties and IKEA Canada front the $26.5-million cost of widening roads, extending bike trails and having new traffic signals at the site. The city and province would pay the developer back $22 million.

Fort Rouge Coun. Jenny Gerbasi and Daniel McIntyre Coun. Harvey Smith voted against the development. They had made a separate motion to hold off on approval, pending a full cost-benefit analysis of the project on economic and environmental grounds.

But that motion failed, as even newly elected River Heights-Fort Garry Coun. John Orlikow - a self-described progressive - and St. Boniface Coun. Dan Vandal declined to support Gerbasi and Smith.

 

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15 Commentscomment icon

more wasted land for parking, couldn't the city force parkades so the area can have more densification.

Big retail wants to build something in Winnipeg? Mr. Katz: "Where's my rubber stamp? Ah, here it is! APPROVED!"

CHINA THANKS You! Suckers

Mr Reader: The Mayor is listening to the citizens! The majority that is. About time this city permitted growth and development as opposed to stalling and letting developments continue to go to other centres.

So here is to the Mayor and council and congratulations on passing this proposal.

By the way, does Gerbasi ever pass anything in Council? It seems anything of any importance is voted against by her. It's hilarious...If she were Mayor we would be riding horses on dirt steets.

To CanDo: Becoming more like Mexicans -just pick up and leave the old stuff and move down the road?? What kind of a xenophobic comment is that?? IKEA has said time and time again that this was the only land big enough to hold this development. Oh wait!! They are probably lying (as do all corporations and developers because they just want our money and want to destroy our green space). Well guess what?? It isn't always true. The downtown has it's problems yes, but building IKEA there won't fix them and it isn't feasible anyway. I happen to think this is great for the city. As several commenters have said previously, we have green space and it isn't utilised as much as it could be. If you plan to move CanDo, hey, the sooner the better.

can hardly say it is a surprise with our current mayor. Here's to you for not caring about urban sprawl, pollution, increased traffic, increased traffic flow, concerns of citizens, and having no vision for the future of our city except to increase development as quickly as possible. Here! Here! Well done Mr. Mayor.

Green Space? I didn't know the former rail yards was a green space. I thought it was, ya know, a rail yard.

As for green space in the city, I'm all for them building parks and whatnot in areas that don't have any. But Assiniboine Forest is near by, as well as the park. Also Fort Whyte Alive is right there, which I go to regularly, but rarely see others using it.

Greatflatland: I have built many, many buildings in my career, and thought you might be interested to know that the materials that have become standard in construction have become much stronger in last number of years. The strength of concrete used in construction these days didn't even exist 20 years ago. Thank you for the comment based on made up facts though. It is really beneficial to the discussion.

Now all we need is an NHL team at MTS Centre 45 nights a years, and maybe Winnipeg will start to become a half-decent city in which to live.

CanDo: Downtown would not be able to accomodate this ammount of development. Your arguement hinges on the notion that there is 80 hectares of empty commercial space not being used in the downtown. This is simply not the case. If you added all the empty buildings in downtown where no development is planned, you would not come up with this amount of space. Therefore, your arguement that we are moving down the road is unapplicable. The city is expanding, and the downtown is still vibrant and full of enterprise. As for 'green space', Winnipeg is an urban centre. It is a city, and cities contain development. Manitoba has huge amounts of undeveloped land beyond the city limits. You are talking as if we are cutting down the last tree to build this store. Have you ever travelled rurally? There is plenty of 'green space' left. Then you proceed to call this a 'sad state of affairs' without advancing a single arguement to support that statement that is built on a solid premise.

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