Once vibrant, now vacant Portage Avenue’s decades-long decline picked up speed during pandemic By: Gabrielle Piché Posted: 7:00 PM CST Friday, Feb. 10, 2023 Last Modified: 9:30 AM CST Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023 Updates

Annette Frank began locking the door of her Portage Avenue bridal shop during the pandemic. She wanted to keep her customers safe and had to follow public-health capacity restrictions.

Three years later, Helene’s Bridal Salon continues to serve people by appointment only, but not because of COVID-19.

She said some terrifying incidents — people wandering in off the street, behaving aggressively, even stealing customers’ shoes — have forced her to change how she conducts business at 422 Portage.

“After we did that, we were like, ‘Why did we not do this sooner?’” Frank says.

And locking the door hasn’t reduced the number of customers at the 70-year-old business; the regular pedestrian traffic along what was once Winnipeg’s premier shopping district has disappeared, as has much of the street-level commerce that it. Bridal shops don’t typically attract browsers, anyway, she says.

Welcome to post-pandemic Portage Avenue.

On a recent nine-block walk along Portage from Vaughan Street to Main, there were “for lease” signs on 14 different storefronts. The Downtown Winnipeg BIZ estimates about a third of the street-level spaces are empty.

Retailers with deep roots — such as Dominion News, which closed last year after 98 years — and Don’s Photo are gone.

Mike Godfrey, Don’s Photo’s president, cited a lack of foot traffic, crime — and the perception of it — and being located in a 101-year-old building in need of repairs and renovations as reasons for the camera retailer’s recent move to a spot on Broadway.

“The area we were in has changed a lot,” he said in January. “We just felt it was time.”

Don’s, a beauty school and a travel agency had been located in the building at 410 Portage Ave. Now, it’s empty.

Frank noticed competitors leaving before COVID’s arrival.

“Being in the downtown, I think, has been hurting (us),” she says, noting her bridal boutique competition is located away from the city centre.

“A lot of people don’t want to come down here. The customers that do come, they tell us, ‘You’re the last place we’re coming to.’”

“There’s a lot more steps (coming downtown).”–Annette Frank

Parking — finding it and paying for it — is a big factor.

“There’s a lot more steps (coming downtown),” she says.

Frank, who purchased the business five years ago, is considering a move.

“You have to survive,” she says. “When you see everyone else do it, you’re kind of like, ‘There’s a reason.’ How long can you weather the storm? There’s no quick fix for any of the businesses down here. It’s quite sad.”

A bit further west, Adam Tayfour would like to see a larger security presence on the street.

He and Mohamad Barafi have operated Middle Eastern restaurant Les Saj, across the street from the University of Winnipeg, for the past seven months.

“We love downtown,” Tayfour says. “We saw the opportunity…. We were hoping for the full return of university students.”

Although Booster Juice, Garbonzo’s Sports Pub and Starbucks have left the area in the past five years, Tayfour says business has been slower than expected.

And, since opening at 480 Portage, windows have been smashed and valuables stolen. Evenings can be difficult.

“When we moved here we knew all these factors,” he says. “We just want to run the test and see (how this goes).”

He thinks Winnipeg’s core could, eventually, attract more residents and office workers.

“We’re hoping to see a better improvement in the area in general, so we’re here to stay,” Tayfour says. “We’re thinking long term — five or 10 years from now.”

Jody Nabess is in the food court at Portage Place, a diet grapefruit drink in hand.

“Timmys isn’t open,” she says, pointing at her go-to coffee provider, which is closed Sundays.

Nabess visits Portage Place almost every day, but has to take a bus out of downtown to buy most things, she says. The mall’s main floor is littered with empty retail spaces.

Tina Marinko, another regular visitor to the mall, laments the closing of both the three-screen Globe Cinemas and Imax theatre on the third floor.

“Sometimes (Portage Place is) dangerous, sometimes it’s not,” she says. “You never know.”

Nabess would like to see Portage Place converted into affordable housing for students. The 337,000-square-foot building is available for lease, according to Vancouver owner Peterson Group’s website.

A Toronto-based investor proposed transforming the shopping centre into a mixed-use space with residential units and retail outlets, but the ambitious $400 million project fell through in 2021.

Revitalizing Portage Place has been a “constant conversation” for Sherri Rollins, a downtown city councillor.

“That’s something that never stops,” says Rollins (Fort Rouge – East Fort Garry), adding there is continuous work being done to attract and retain business downtown, including along Portage Avenue.

She and Downtown Winnipeg BIZ CEO Kate Fenske say whatever becomes of the building, it should include housing.

And keeping it a community gathering space is important, Fenske says.

Origins of the avenue

Portage Avenue was a prominent stretch before pavement and electricity.

It began as a trail, used as a crossing for explorers, traders and hunters in ox-drawn carts, according to Cindy Tugwell, Heritage Winnipeg’s executive director.

The route connected trading hubs, including Upper Fort Garry and Portage la Prairie.

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Portage Avenue was a prominent stretch before pavement and electricity.

It began as a trail, used as a crossing for explorers, traders and hunters in ox-drawn carts, according to Cindy Tugwell, Heritage Winnipeg’s executive director.

The route connected trading hubs, including Upper Fort Garry and Portage la Prairie.

Portage Avenue boomed from the late 1890s to the First World War. Building upon building appeared. Eaton’s department store opened in 1905; electric streetcars came about at the turn of the 20th century.

The streetcars allowed for development further along Portage Avenue, away from Main Street.

A number of things have changed Portage Avenue’s makeup since, Tugwell said, including the proliferation of cars and the flight to the suburbs in the 1960s, the construction of Portage Place and demolition of some heritage buildings in the 1980s and the MTS Centre arena —now named Canada Life Centre — which opened in 2004.

Revitalizing Portage Avenue requires a well thought-out plan, not a “hodge-podge” of initiatives, Tugwell said.

— Gabrielle Piché

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The BIZ is among the stakeholders working on a downtown recovery strategy with a framework that includes: physical changes, such as tree-planting and sidewalk repair; more events; expanding community outreach and adopting a harm-reduction approach; building 1,500 mixed-income housing units; and providing a grant to businesses to improve their spaces.

“It’s a matter of, ‘What do we want to see Portage Avenue being?’” Fenske says. “It’s taking that big-picture approach.”

About $2.5 million has been earmarked for the redevelopment of Air Canada Window Park, a green space at Portage and Carlton Street, Fenske says.

The city has issued a request for proposals on its redevelopment and Fenske says construction could begin in the summer.

“We know Air Canada Park has definitely been a gathering space…. (The redevelopment will add) some energy to our community,” she says. “The more people that are downtown, the safer it is.”

Major investments in the former Hudson’s Bay and Bank of Montreal buildings will help the strip in the coming years, Fenske notes.

Rollins points to the city’s approval of $20 million in grants for COVID-19 economic recovery, $10 million of it directed downtown.

The province announced $3.6 million in funding to the Downtown Community Safety Partnership last November, plus another $150,000 for a program to provide training and skills development to at-risk community members.

Other Canadian cities have reinvented their downtowns through culture, says Marc Vachon, a University of Winnipeg geography professor.

“There’s very few places across Canada that have so (much) Indigenous culture, as well as buildings and museums in its downtown,” he says. “I don’t know why we don’t sell this, in terms of culture and identity.”

The Southern Chiefs’ Organization announced last April its plan to transform the 97-year-old former Hudson’s Bay building at Portage and Memorial Boulevard into Wehwehneh Bahgahkinahgohn, a mixed-use facility that includes affordable housing units and restaurants.

Melanie Ferris, the SCO’s director of communications, told the Free Press Thursday that interior demolition and renovations are scheduled to begin “in the next few months.”

The Manitoba Métis Federation is converting the Bank of Montreal building at 201 Portage Ave. into a heritage centre.

Office workers returning downtown a few days a week would help local businesses, Vachon says.

And he believes more businesses should cater to Winnipeg’s post-secondary crowd.

“There’s little amenities or retail or stores for them,” he said, pointing to the thousands of students who attend The University of Winnipeg and nearby Booth University College.

Winnipeg needs to shift away from its car culture, invest in public transit and make the city’s core more walkable, he says, but acknowledges that safety concerns can’t be addressed until there are solutions to poverty.

“I have no bandage to offer,” he says.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com

Gabrielle Piché
Reporter

Gabby is a big fan of people, writing and learning. She graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in the spring of 2020.

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