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Warehouse district at risk?

Heritage group puts region on endangered list

By: Kevin Rollason

Posted: 08/12/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Sport Manitoba recently moved into the former Smart Bag Company building on Pacific Avenue in the warehouse district.

The paradise of the city's warehouse district -- including the Exchange District National Historic Site -- is in danger of being paved into parkades and overtaken by new buildings.

That's the warning from the national non-profit organization Heritage Canada Foundation, which placed the warehouse district in its sixth annual Top Ten Endangered Places list on Wednesday.

Enlarge Image

A three-storey section of the building (far left in the photo, left) was torn down to make way for a new field house. (TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES)

Good things, bad things

THE Heritage Canada Foundation says good and bad things have been happening in the city's warehouse district -- which includes the Exchange District -- in recent years:

Hits:

Union Bank Tower, 500-504 Main St., being restored for Red River College.

Kelly House, 88 Adelaide St., is the new home for the CancerCare Manitoba Foundation.

Misses:

The demolition of the 1884 and 1906 sections of the Smart Bag Company building at 145 Pacific Ave., to make way for a sports field house next to the Sport Manitoba building.

City council refusing to designate as historical the 1920 Grain Exchange Annex at 153 Lombard Ave., allowing it to be razed for a parkade.

CentreVenture allowing the demolition of the Epic Theatre, built in 1913 as the first theatre west of Montreal specifically for movies, and five other historic buildings to make way for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority building and parkade. They included the Starland Theatre, built in 1909, and the Club Hotel at 652 Main St.

Carolyn Quinn, a foundation spokeswoman, said the list is designed to draw attention to areas under threat across the nation.

"Sometimes when you live amongst them, you don't always notice what's notable about them," she said.

"Winnipeg is lucky -- or burdened -- depending on your point of view, with the responsibility of having that district.

"But it's like a person once told me: You can have a beautiful smile, but if you start taking out teeth, you diminish the smile. It is disconcerting when a decision is made to delist a building when a previous council has listed it as heritage."

Other endangered sites include Kitsilano Senior Secondary School in Vancouver, Lansdowne Park in Ottawa, and the Porter/McKinley block -- home to one of the last remaining intact opera houses in Ontario -- in Ridgetown.

"It's upsetting," Coun. Jenny Gerbasi, chairwoman of the city's historical buildings committee, said when she learned the warehouse area was on the endangered list. "I am very concerned about this... . We have a heritage asset here -- it's a national historic site -- and we have the responsibility to be stewards of it."

Gerbasi said the most grievous loss in the area was the Grain Exchange Annex, built in 1920, because it was in the heart of the national historic site.

"I don't know how we could have done that," she said. "When you lose a heritage asset, it is gone -- you can't bring it back."

Cindy Tugwell, executive director of Heritage Winnipeg, said she wants to see more input from the public before city councillors vote to list or delist heritage buildings.

"The Exchange District is important for its economic impact," Tugwell said. "As you erode the Exchange, you'll lose tourism dollars and film-industry dollars. It's one of the most important areas in Canada.

"The public doesn't have a say," Tugwell said, pointing to the new Cube stage in Old Market Square as an example of something that shouldn't have been built there. "This is a park in a historic area," she said. "It's the heartbeat."

But Ross McGowan, executive director of CentreVenture, the city's property development agency, calls the foundation's list "irresponsible and inaccurate."

The Main Street buildings demolished for construction of a new Winnipeg Regional Health Authority clinic and offices were vacant for 20 years, he said. "Anyone, including Heritage Canada Foundation, could have purchased them for $1 and no one ever did."

McGowan said the list is too focused on the negatives and not enough on the positives, including the redevelopment of the Union Bank Tower for Red River College.

"CentreVenture is very supportive of heritage conservation," he said.

"(The foundation) should be lobbying for additional capital from the federal government to help save these buildings... . The Metropolitan Theatre is a national historic site, but it would cost a 30 per cent premium to do a proper restoration project on it -- that's a lot to ask a private developer."

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 12, 2010 B1

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