Province receives seven proposals for shuttered Centre Village

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This article was published 24/05/2023 (844 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The province has begun reviewing proposals for the redevelopment of a shuttered Manitoba Housing property in downtown Winnipeg.

A request for expressions of interest from parties interested in taking on Centre Village (a 25-unit property at 575 Balmoral St.) closed May 19. A provincial spokesperson said Manitoba Housing received a total of seven proposals.

The province is reviewing them, and will create a short list of groups that will be part of a negotiated request for proposal phase. The spokesperson noted there was “no specific timeline established for that phase at this time” — a response that raised eyebrows of some Central Park neighbourhood residents.

Jason Keenan has been following the former subsidized housing complex closely — he has lived across the property for seven years, and came to the Free Press with safety concerns in February, saying break-ins and illegal activity at the property was going ignored by Manitoba Housing.

He was hopeful when the REOI was opened, but said hearing the province had no timeline for next steps was concerning.

“(The province) has a problem with procrastination. They leave it to the last possible second before they’ll do anything about it,” Keenan said Wednesday.

“It takes the press, it takes the citizens that live in the area to bring up the complaints and say something about it before they’ll do anything.”

Built in 2010, Centre Village was closed just 12 years after it opened, with design and safety concerns cited. It has since been boarded up and fallen into disrepair.

Keenan said in the time since voicing his concerns, on-site criminal activity has slowed. However, should the next steps toward giving the complex new life drag on, it’s “guaranteed” it will start back up again, he said.

“It’s just getting to summer, so we’ll see how bad that courtyard gets.”

When the REOI was opened, Manitoba Housing acting director Carolyn Ryan said the agency would work to “wrap this up sooner rather than later.”

“We’d rather do it right than do it fast, and I realize that’s cold comfort for the neighbours surrounding 575 Balmoral, who’ve had to deal with increased issues on the property,” she said in April.

In the REOI, Manitoba Housing said it will prioritize new construction projects that would focus on social and affordable housing and increase the size of the units, putting demolition on the table as an option.

Manitoba Housing estimates the cost to fully repair the property is roughly $1.7 million. The City of Winnipeg’s assessed value of the property is $1.5 million.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

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