Developer scuttles plan to build apartment tower, puts Portage and Furby lot up for sale

Years-long plans to turn a vacant lot into one of the tallest new buildings outside of the downtown in decades will remain on the drawing board.

The plan to build a 21-storey, mixed-use apartment building at 634 Portage Ave., has ended with the lot — once the site of a car dealership — up for sale at a $6.5-million asking price.

P3, or Private Pension Partners Realty, said it was not commenting on the sale listing or why its development plan was no longer going forward.

Jino Distasio, an urban planning professor at the University of Winnipeg, said he is disappointed the development is not going ahead, but not surprised.

“I don’t know why this happened, but it is not uncommon to see changes,” Distasio said Wednesday. “I would like to see this lot filled in with the right type of housing for West Broadway.

“It is a big beautiful lot on Portage Avenue which needs to be more than a vacant lot.”

If it had gone ahead, the project would have been the city’s tallest structure to be built outside of the downtown since the 26-storey 11 Evergreen Pl., was constructed in 1984.

The developer applied to rezone the property Portage Avenue and Furby Street property in 2021.

The current real estate advertisement describes the property as a “prime, mixed-use development opportunity.

“P3 Realty is pleased to present a rare, shovel-ready opportunity to deliver a landmark mixed-use rental development in the heart of Winnipeg.”

The ad says the site has already been fully rezoned, all variances needed are in place, and it is approved for an apartment building anywhere from 21 to 30 storeys in height. It added the proposed design would have seen 374 units, more than 6,000 square feet of commercial space on the main floor, and a 75-stall parkade.

Darryl Harrison, stakeholder engagement director with the Winnipeg Construction Association, said he couldn’t comment on the decision, but added the cost of construction materials has shot up in the last few years.

“The pandemic definitely created a significant increase in construction costs which has since created a new normal,” he said.

“It settled down in 2022-2023, but it has been going up annually since then.”

Harrison said this year alone Winnipeg has seen “inflationary pressure on construction materials” of 3.69 per cent in the first quarter and 3.8 per cent in the second.

At the same time, over the last couple of years, he said the number of building permits taken out has tumbled about four per cent while multi-unit residential housing has dropped by six per cent.

But Harrison said there is good news on the horizon.

“There is projected to be very large public infrastructure to be built in the next five years,” he said, noting the areas will be in defence, housing and health.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca