MMF buys long-vacant federal lab

The Manitoba Métis Federation has taken another major step in its effort to help revitalize downtown Winnipeg by acquiring the former National Research Council property on Ellice Avenue.

The federation has scheduled a news conference today to announce it has purchased the office tower, laboratory and parking lot at 435-445 Ellice Ave. The acquisition expands its downtown footprint to more than one million square feet of owned property and will eventually house about 70 per cent of its 1,300 employees.

The sale ends a years-long legal dispute between the federation and the research council. The federation had sued the federal agency after an earlier agreement to purchase the property collapsed in 2020.

“Everybody’s happy, they’re happy, we’re happy. And now we just got to start the transition of our plan,” federation president David Chartrand told the Free Press Thursday.

“We’re bringing another 100 to 120 employees downtown and we’ve already (moved) 500 employees there to show our support for a revision and saving of downtown. I’m very concerned as a leader, to see our cities start to fall. We need to do more.”

Chartrand said more than 100 staff who work at Métis Child and Family Services Authority will relocate to the Ellice Avenue site from offices at 2000 Portage Ave.

The laboratory building, which includes more than 70 labs, will be repurposed for nurse training, Métis-led research initiatives and, Chartrand hopes, it will eventually house an MRI machine.

“We’re going to start with (licensed practical nurses) right away,” Chartrand said, adding the course has been approved by the MMF cabinet. “I know there’s a mass shortage of nurses and nurses are having to work a lot of overtime as it is.”

He said an MRI machine would allow for 4,000 appointments annually.

“We believe we can start off with one,” he said. “Maybe we can start off with two.”

Details of a new partnership with the University of Winnipeg will be released at the media briefing today.

The federation is partnering with the Bioscience Association of Manitoba to make unused laboratory space available to industry, researchers and academic institutions at a time when demand for specialized lab facilities outpaces supply.

“Our No. 1 export is medicine,” said Andrea Ladouceur, the association’s president and CEO. “One thing that Manitoba needs more of is lab space — lab space that can be used to help, whether it’s a new or an established company or researcher, make those discoveries that help us improve health care, improve agriculture, improve clean technologies.”

Ladouceur said the shortage of lab space has forced some Manitoba companies and researchers to look outside the province.

She added the building’s specialized infrastructure, including backup power systems, makes it especially valuable for research.

“It is built to a standard that is pretty rare nowadays,” she said.

Ladouceur said that level of reliability is critical for researchers, whose work can be set back by years or result in the loss of millions of dollars if experiments are interrupted by a power outage.

The property was owned by the federal government, but the Stephen Harper government announced in April 2012 that it would be shuttered, 54 researchers would be let go and the site would be declared surplus.

In its September 2023 lawsuit, the Métis federation alleged negotiations to buy the property fell apart because the research council did not act in good faith. It argued the failed sale breached the federal government’s constitutional obligation to deal honourably with Indigenous Peoples.

The federation had offered $14.4 million for the vacant property in March 2020 and had plans to lease the lab space back to the research council at fair market value for 25 years.

The lawsuit said the sale was halted because the Public Health Agency of Canada was interested in the site during the COVID-19 pandemic. The initial purchase offer expired in July 2020.

The federation submitted a separate offer to buy the office tower in 2021, but alleged negotiations were repeatedly delayed before the research council said in 2022 it would seek other buyers.

Chartrand said Thursday the lawsuit was necessary because, in his view, an offer to purchase was accepted.

“I was very disappointed in that,” he said. “At the time, we were expanding and our own operations were cluttered everywhere.”

Chartrand said they didn’t look at other buildings because they believed there was an agreement to buy the Ellice Avenue site. Eventually, he said he bought 200 Main St. at a higher price because he had no choice.

The federation owns 11 properties in downtown Winnipeg, including the Bank of Montreal building at 335 Main St., 333 Main St., and 191 Pioneer Ave. Its headquarters is on Henry Street in Point Douglas.

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca