True North delivers update on massive Portage Place redevelopment, urges people to hang around downtown
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As a $650-million redevelopment of Portage Place moves forward, business leaders are being asked to help ensure the effort pays off.
True North Real Estate Development gave a presentation on its project to transform the property to about 500 people gathered at a Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce luncheon Friday.
Jim Ludlow, the company’s president, urged his audience to spend more time downtown.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
Jim Ludlow, president of True North Real Estate Development, speaks on True North’s vision for downtown at a Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Delta downtown, Friday.
“Be that person (who) lingers downtown after a game or a concert. Be that person who says to a friend when asked, ‘Where should we meet for dinner’… answers, ‘How about downtown?’” said Ludlow.
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 health-care services tower, main-floor grocery store, community centres, office space for social agencies and other services.
True North has partnered with Southern Chiefs’ Organization to create a non-profit called TN-SCO Housing 92 Inc., to deliver and manage the housing component. Proponents hope to complete the housing by the end of 2027, with the remaining development expected within the next three or four years.
“The redevelopment of Portage Place will… be a city-leading victory (to) energize our downtown for the next several decades,” said Ludlow.
He said “vacancy and closure loomed” as tenants moved out of the existing massive retail space, the design of which severed connections in the centre of the city.
“The building, in its current form, acts like a blunt instrument in our downtown, sort of a concrete bollard the size of a mall. The 1980s design of Portage Place served to cut off one side of our downtown neighbourhoods from the other, north from south,” said Ludlow.
Part of the redevelopment will demolish the mall’s atrium, allowing Edmonton Street to be extended through to Central Park, reconnecting the areas, he said.
The health-care “centre for excellence” portion of the project is projected to bring nearly 7,000 people downtown every day, Ludlow said.
joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca
X: @joyanne_pursaga
Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.
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Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.
Every piece of reporting Joyanne 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.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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