Urbanists have high hopes for True North Square — if it ever gets off the ground

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This article was published 06/02/2015 (3927 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Vancouver-based urbanist believes downtown Winnipeg remains in desperate need of investment, and the proposed True North Square development could go a long way toward creating the central business district everybody wants.

More than anything, said Charles Montgomery, Winnipeg needs “thoughtful” development.

“That means mixing uses to bring people downtown at all hours of the day and night and creating environments that are walkable, interesting, lively and fun,” he said.

“Winnipeggers need to ask themselves how much do they actually enjoy walking through (downtown Winnipeg).”

The $400-million project — which would see two towers and a public square built on a Manitoba Public Insurance-owned surface-parking lot at 225 Carlton St. and a third tower constructed on the CentreVenture-owned Carlton Inn site at 220 Carlton St. — has become the focal point of a firestorm between Winnipeg Jets co-owner Mark Chipman and Mayor Brian Bowman. Chipman shot back at Bowman on Wednesday after the mayor had alleged the process, which gave True North Sports & Entertainment an exclusive option on the land, wasn’t sufficiently transparent.

Montgomery, the award-winning author of Happy City, was in town to deliver the keynote address at a Canadian Association of Planning Students event Thursday evening at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

After arriving in town, Montgomery took a walk through downtown Wednesday night and found long stretches of blank, concrete walls, inactivity and a “deeply unfriendly urbanism.” He has helped conduct experiments on the effect of urban landscapes on pedestrians’ emotions, and the results weren’t positive.

“(These environments) don’t just cause people to walk faster; they stop people from lingering. People feel less happy, and they are less kind to strangers,” he said.

Jino Distasio, director of the Institute of Urban Studies at the University of Winnipeg, said True North Square is certainly a welcome project for Winnipeg’s downtown, particularly if it is primarily privately funded.

At $400 million, the list of comparable projects in Winnipeg is small and would include the new terminal building at the airport, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and Manitoba Hydro’s new headquarters. The MTS Centre, by comparison, cost $133.5 million to build prior to its November 2004 grand opening.

“Just on sheer scale and scope, this is a huge project for downtown Winnipeg. It’s a long-term plan to say to everybody, ‘We’re moving very rapidly into new territory where the downtown is going to experience more dramatic, positive change,” he said. “We’ve turned a corner and come through a period of subsidizing everything to now seeing megaprojects stand on their own.”

Distasio said CentreVenture, Winnipeg’s downtown-development agency, was born out of “utter desperation” when the city had to throw whatever it could at developers for them to come to Winnipeg.

“Everything was so heavily subsidized. We’d have been dancing in the streets 20 years ago if somebody said, ‘I’m putting $400 million into downtown development,’ ” he said.

Montgomery, who has seen the video touting True North Square, cautioned the public needs to be involved in the final design process.

“It’s a beautiful video. What architects and developers often do is populate their renderings with humanoid figures, often women and children, having a great time. That is not an assurance that the space will actually draw people or be a celebratory space,” he said. “It’s crucial that if this kind of project does go forward that you don’t let the words ‘mixed use’ stand in for great urbanism. It needs to be done carefully with an eye to the experience of people on the street.”

Of course, nothing is going to happen unless Chipman and Bowman can put aside their differences and True North puts the project back on the table.

“Winnipeg is no stranger to tension between government and developers. This won’t be the last time somebody’s nose gets out of joint. We’ve got two people here who really need to sit down and work this out,” Distasio said.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca

Experts say True North Square would make Winnipeg happy. What do you think the city needs to make it happy? Join the conversation in the comments below.