Splish, splash, splat

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/05/2012 (5215 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An Alberta-based company’s decision to withdraw its proposal for a water park, parkade and hotel near The Forks is not a big surprise, though it is disappointing. Canalta concluded there is no point spending another nickel on a project that has stirred such bitter opposition, both at city council and among the general public.

Deputy mayor Justin Swandel says the company would have had to spend “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to meet the terms of a council resolution that called for substantial design and site plans before a decision to sell the land could be made. While the motion was vague, the intent was to provide an image of what the site might eventually look like, something that could have been achieved with a small investment.

The company, however, was not interested in engaging in a drawn-out political battle without a “reasonable expectation of success,” but it may also have wondered if it could meet the high design standards that would have been expected.

The city underestimated the passion of Winnipeggers for The Forks precinct, where almost every development has been controversial. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, itself the subject of much debate, merely intensified scrutiny over what might be an appropriate development on what is now a gravel parking lot.

Civic officials forgot all that, not because of some grand conspiracy, but because they believed a water-park/hotel complex was a good idea that would have been warmly embraced by families from Charleswood to Transcona.

The company didn’t help matters by refusing to meet with the community or to prepare an architect’s rendering of what might be possible, but the legal process would have required them to do all that once the city signalled it was serious about doing business. That wasn’t enough for the naysayers.

A water park and hotel could have been a good fit at The Forks, the province’s No. 1 tourist destination where people go to be active and have fun, but we’ll never know. In the end, a majority of councillors collapsed under the weight of a narrow perspective that The Forks, particularly the site near the museum, is too sacred for any mortal endeavour.