Exchange District gets unwanted vacant lot

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This article was published 27/04/2023 (909 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The city is stuck with an empty lot where a heritage building was demolished in the Exchange District after plans for a three-storey residential and commercial building collapsed.

“We lost the building for nothing,” Cindy Tugwell, executive director of Heritage Winnipeg, said on Wednesday.

“This is why the city shouldn’t allow demolition until a developer is fully ready to go ahead. Why did they allow the demolition?”

The proposal, which involved the triangular corner at 98 Albert St., known to heritage advocates as the site of the Reliable Service Station and in recent years as the former location of Bodegoes restaurant, has been shelved. An increase in construction costs has made it financially unfeasible.

“I’m going to use this a a major poster child for what shouldn’t be done,” Tugwell said.

While Tugwell is angry about the loss of the 98-year-old building, she is happy the proposed development isn’t going ahead because it didn’t fit the historic nature of the area, which has been declared a national historic site by the federal government.

“It would have damaged the streetscape,” she said. “But I’m unhappy about the demolition.”

Owner John Knowles, a resident of the heritage building next door, which he restored, said he wanted to put a new building on the site, but because of increases in construction and materials costs related to the pandemic it became financially unviable. The plan was to build three suites and include retail space or a restaurant on the main floor.

Knowles said the building was designed to sit on a pad with no basement so excavation wouldn’t be necessary.

“We suspect there are more than one underground gas tanks,” he said. “We would have gone ahead if it was viable. A building on this triangular lot would be quite striking.

“For someone who wants to do it for love, that’s great, but for us it wasn’t viable anymore.”

Knowles said he is open to other proposals.

“Never say never,” he said. “Other people would be welcome to make suggestions, but it would have to be something we could live with because we live here.”

A city spokesman confirmed “the building permit for this property is not expired, so options for the permit applicant include obtaining an extension or cancelling the permit.”

According to a 2014 report compiled for the city’s historical buildings and resources committee, the former Reliable Service Station was built in 1925.

The garage, which had a pair of gas pumps out front, also had a shallow tile roof, similar to how local Safeway and Piggly Wiggly stores were built in Winnipeg at the same time.

The service station stayed open until the 1970s, when it became the home for a window and building cleaning company. Then it became a restaurant with an outdoor patio during the summer.

The building was protected for decades under the city’s former historic building bylaw. Heritage advocates decried a change made shortly before the end of Mayor Sam Katz’s tenure in 2014.

The new bylaw created a commemorative list, which recognized buildings and land “for their architectural and/or historical value,” but no longer placed restrictions on demolition or alterations.

The Reliable Service Station was on that list, along with about 340 others.

David Pensato, executive director of the Exchange District BIZ, said the empty site shows the city needs to do more before approving demolitions.

“The city doesn’t have all the tools it needs,” Pensato said. “Providing a demolition permit after approving a project sounds good, but there doesn’t seem to be any way of having assurances the project will go ahead… it was the ease of which it was de-listed. It sets a precedent where just about anything can be demolished.

“But sometimes even the best intentions and most solid plans can unravel.”

Sherri Rollins, chair of the civic property and development committee, said the city is working on a report that she expects will result in changes related to vacant buildings demolitions.

“I don’t know about this property,” Rollins said. “I don’t know if the financing fell through.

“But it can be disheartening when you approve a building and it sits on an empty lot. Empty lots are not the highest and best uses of downtown property.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca