Portage Place health clinic price jumps nearly $30M

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/10/2024 (373 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government says opening a health clinic in the redeveloped Portage Place will cost the province $106 million.

Premier Wab Kinew confirmed the amount at an unrelated news conference Monday, days after the deal was finalized with True North Real Estate Development.

The province previously put a $77-million price-tag on the clinic.

“It’s a really important investment in health care, but also in the community and downtown Winnipeg,” Kinew told reporters.

The health tower will include a primary-care clinic with integrated mental health and addictions services, as well as surgery, diagnostics and renal dialysis and an expanded Pan Am Clinic.

The province is budgeting to spend $106 million, but the cost could increase closer to the clinic’s construction due to inflation.

Kinew wouldn’t reveal what that figure is broken down as health-care spending versus lease costs.

In addition to the health-care services tower, the 1.2-million-square-foot mixed-use project will create 216 housing units, with up to 40 per cent of them designated affordable, a main-floor grocery store, community centres, office space for social agencies and other services.

The federal government has committed $10 million to the project for public spaces and city council recently approved $40 million of incentives toward the project.

The redevelopment will cost at least $650 million, a recent cost estimate shows.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca