Diversity Gardens bolstered by $2-M donation

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This article was published 30/08/2018 (2771 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Prominent Winnipeggers rubbed elbows Wednesday night in the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden at Assiniboine Park, as a former Winnipegger announced a $2-million donation to Canada’s Diversity Gardens.

Chairman at A2A Rail USA LLC, and at Alberta to Alaska Rail Development Corporation Sean McCoshen now splits his time between Vancouver and California, and does most of his business in the U.S., but he regularly returns to Winnipeg to visit family and lifelong friends.

“People from Winnipeg can go out in the world, spread their wings, but you always got to come home,” said the former investment banker, who at 13 moved from New York to Winnipeg, but considers it home.

As for the donation to assist in the building of what is billed by the Assiniboine Park Conservancy as the “final major phase of the redevelopment campaign to revitalize and rejuvenate Assiniboine Park,” McCoshen said he felt he had to do something for the city that raised him.

“I thought it was something I owed the city,” McCoshen said.

“Winnipeg is a very international city. I’ve travelled the world and I still call this place home.

“I hope it will inspire other people to give back.”

At the fundraising garden party — billed as An Evening Under the Stars — servers carried canapés and champagne on silver trays.

Amongst the garden’s statues, a small band played old standards, while men in blazers and women in cocktail dresses mingled.

Mayor Brian Bowman was seen beaming. McCoshen was chatting with Assiniboine Park Conservancy chairman Hartley Richardson.

Free Press co-owner Bob Silver and wife Kim Silver were the presenting patrons.

‘I thought it was something I owed the city. Winnipeg is a very international city, I’ve travelled the world and I still call this place home’– Sean McCoshen, on his $2-million donation to the Assiniboine Park Conservancy

Assiniboine Park Conservancy chief operating officer Bruce Keats called the Diversity Gardens project an “asset for the citizens of Winnipeg and the province of Manitoba.”

McCoshen’s $2-million donation will go in the kitty for the $75-million project, which is funded mostly with taxpayer dollars — $35 million of the total cost from the federal government, $15 million from the provincial government and $10 million from the City of Winnipeg.

The Assiniboine Park Conservatory was recently closed, and will be demolished. The gardens are expected to open in 2019.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.a