Keeping community together

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This article was published 10/06/2024 (480 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sherry Mooney knows all too well how difficult it can be for a senior in Charleswood looking to downsize.

An area resident of 30 years, Mooney searched high and low for an apartment in a 55-plus complex, but came up empty and ultimately had to leave the west Winnipeg neighbourhood upon selling her home.

“There was no place,” Mooney told the Free Press recently. “There was only one residence that I would’ve been interested in and they wouldn’t even take my name on a waiting list because their waiting list was so excessive.”

Mooney, board president of the Charleswood Active Living Centre, hears and sees a large segment of area residents that are facing a similar dilemma.

There are just two suitable residences in the community, which is home to one of the fastest-growing populations of seniors in the city, she said.

Coun. Evan Duncan (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood) called his ward an “aged community.”

“The importance of it is huge,” Duncan said of the need for senior residences. “There is a population that I can say specifically in Charleswood that has aged in place for 40, 50, 60, some upward of 70 years.

“That’s what’s so unique about that community is there’s some people who have spent their entire lives living in Charleswood, some in generational homes, as well,” he added. “We’ve (also) had this huge gap in the last 15 years … of no significant multi-family development that can accommodate these seniors to remain in their community.

“I can tell you what people don’t want to do at the age of 60, 70, 80 is leave their community to go to a community that is not familiar to them.”

The Senior Residences of Oakdale is hoped to release some of the tension.

The three-building development on Oakdale Drive, near Grant Avenue, will bring 270 rental units to a niche segment of the buyer’s market by May 2025.

The 55-plus complex will open in three phases: the first 63 units in the five-storey Building C coming sometime this fall; Building B, a seven-storey structure with 125 suites, will open during the winter months; and Building A, another five-storey establishment, will add the last 82 units in the spring.

“Apartments allow seniors to move out of their house and, in some cases, they use the proceeds from their house for their retirement. It allows them to stay in the community that they live in to take advantage of the services and amenities that they’re used to in their community,” said Keith Merkel, president of Edgecorp Developments, which is developing the Oakdale residence with Exemplar Developments.

“This one here, we have universal suites … We have adaptable suites for people with mobility challenges, the buildings are fully accessible — they’re connected to the parkway,” he said.

“It’s a good fit for the community and it answers a need that the community has, which, to be frank, city-wide there’s a housing demand by seniors.”

Residents will have access to a gym and common rooms, but perhaps the biggest draw will be the Charleswood Active Living Centre.

The non-profit organization, which provides its mainly senior membership with programs to maintain social and physical well-being, has been a key stakeholder in the Senior Residences of Oakdale since 2019, when it was informed by the City of Winnipeg its lease in the former Charleswood municipal centre would not be renewed when it expires in September 2025.

Duncan said the building will be declared surplus by the city and later go up for tender for potential future development.

The organization, whose membership fluctuates anywhere between 550-600 people, scrambled to find a new home and was eventually approached by Merkel to occupy a 4,000-square-foot space on the main level of Building B.

It was a saving grace, Mooney said.

“The centre is a lifeblood for a lot of people and since COVID, we have recognized even how much more so,” she said.

“We had members that were participating in our higher level of fitness classes and when COVID was over they had to start again at the entry level because they had lost so much physical ability and, in some cases, cognitive ability from the isolation,” Mooney said.

“Unfortunately, we witnessed that of our membership in a huge and very sad and very distressing way — and that even reinforced to us the importance of the centre to our members.”

The Oakdale development will be the first senior residence in Winnipeg to house a non-profit organization. Similar partnerships are seen across Canada, however, namely Vancouver, where the B.C. city requires large developers to include community space so it can renew those spaces without a significant cost to taxpayers.

The Buhler Active Living Centre in Winkler is the only senior residence in Manitoba to enact that model.

“I think that’s the kind of thinking outside of the box that we really need to do, in terms of renewing community spaces, because a number of other centres are also struggling with space and the city also has to balance the space with cost recovery,” Mooney said.

“So, this is a potential win-win-win situation for the city, the developer and for us.”

Some area residents, many of whom live on Oakdale Avenue, took exception to the development during its initial proposal. The reoccurring concerns centred around the size of the complex and the traffic it would create on a low-density street.

Edgecorp and Exemplar shelled out $2.5 million in off-site improvements to rectify the complaints and receive approval, such as paving the road to Grant Avenue, adding a new sidewalk and upgrading the sewer system.

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca