Building owners stunned by Portage and Main underground closure proposal

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This article was published 15/03/2024 (566 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Winnipeg’s plan to close the underground concourse at Portage and Main has been dissed by a group that represents owners and managers of commercial and institutional buildings, including those on three of the four corners of the landmark intersection.

The Building Owners and Managers Association of Manitoba has written to city councillors to ask them to “carefully consider the ramifications” of closing the circular walkway (also called a circus) beneath Portage and Main.

“In (our) opinion, shutting down the concourse would be a step in the wrong direction for Winnipeg’s downtown,” the letter, dated March 13, says.

“In (our) opinion, shutting down the concourse would be a step in the wrong direction for Winnipeg’s downtown”–The Building Owners and Managers Association of Manitoba

“We ask council to be mindful that those concourse-connected buildings contribute approximately $12 million in annual property taxes to city coffers, and provide work spaces for more than 6,000 downtown workers, plus amenities for thousands more visitors and hotel guests.”

Executive director Tom Thiessen said the organization and building owners were taken by surprise by the city’s executive policy committee vote last week to reopen the intersection to pedestrians and to decommission the concourse.

“We don’t think decommissioning the concourse has ever been in the mix,” Thiessen said on Friday. “Even the (city’s 2018) referendum was only having pedestrians on top.”

“We don’t think decommissioning the concourse has ever been in the mix. Even the (city’s 2018) referendum was only having pedestrians on top.”–Tom Thiessen 

Sixty-five per cent of voters had rejected opening the iconic crossroads to pedestrians. It’s been closed since 1979, when the concourse opened.

Thiessen said his association regularly talks to representatives of the buildings at Portage and Main, so “we have a good sense on what they are thinking.”

“We are pretty confident this is a consensus position.”

Mayor Scott Gillingham has said to replace the leaking membrane under the intersection would be a massive project costing $73 million and including up to five years of traffic-delaying construction.

The city says the cost of closing the concourse and opening the intersection to pedestrians is pegged at between $20 million to $50 million.

As well, the mayor’s office has said while it costs the city $1 million to operate and maintain the concourse annually, it received about $111,000 in rent from businesses there last year.

But Thiessen believes the city’s own figures show decommissioning the underground concourse might actually cost more than keeping it open by fixing the membrane.

Thiessen said while the overall project would cost $73 million, the membrane replacement cost alone is pegged at $29 million. And he says most of the remaining $44 million would still have to be spent, even if the decision is made to close the concourse, on watermain and sewer work ($13 million), paving, lighting, trees and barricades ($13 million) and traffic management ($12 million).

He said the city should have squirelled away money for membrane replacement over the years.

“A condo corporation has the good sense of putting money aside for a roof repair,” Thiessen said.

“A membrane doesn’t last forever. These expenses don’t come from out of the blue. “I find the EPC decision very strange and the mayor is only looking at the one side.”

The Richardson Building (northeast corner) and 201 Portage Ave. (northwest corner) would both be cut off from the city’s underground/skywalk system if the concourse were to close. They could not be reached for comment Friday.

However it must be noted Craig Dunsire, who is chairman of BOMA, is also general manager of BGO, which manages the Richardson Building. BOMA board member Lyndsay Jones is vice-president, property management at Artis REIT, a real estate investment trust that owns 360 Main St. (southwest corner). That building would remain connected to the skywalk system even if the concourse were to close.

Gillingham said in a statement Friday that he looks forward to discussions with property owners “about how we can work together to build a vibrant and sustainable downtown.”

Gillingham said all four property owners at the corner of Portage and Main have told him they support opening the intersection to pedestrians, but he admitted “a few of them needed time to consider plans” to close the concourse.

“I promised we’d have further talks about how to ease the transition. We have time as there are no immediate plans to shut it down.”

David Chartrand, president of the Manitoba Métis Federation, which owns the former Bank of Montreal building on the southeast corner, said he favours decommissioning the concourse.

“Our downtown needs a real electrical spark,” Chartrand said. “Our downtown is dying. It is essential for us to revive the downtown and the solution is to make changes.”

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Chartrand said the former bank, which is being converted into a Métis heritage centre, is expected to host one million visitors annually.

He said if the city decided to fix the membrane over the intersection, the five-year construction window would be a massive blow.

“I think we learned from COVID what it could do to us for two years. Imagine what five years would be like.”

Coun. Jeff Browaty, chairman of the city’s finance committee who was the only EPC councillor to vote against the concourse closure, noted “many groups are concerned about this out-of-the-blue closure scenario… At this point no real work has been done to study the shuttering of the underground circus.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Kevin Rollason
Reporter

Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press’s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.

Every piece of reporting Kevin produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.