CentrePort success cause for celebration at all levels

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/11/2024 (344 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In a speech Thursday at a Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce gathering, Carly Edmundson, CEO of CentrePort, did well to note the support the inland port has received over the years.

It was significant because, in all fairness, it took some time before CentrePort made its presence felt.

While the $213-million CentrePort Canada Way (PTH 190) was being built, it was being dubbed the highway to nowhere. Now, there are five million vehicles per year travelling on it — many of them semi-trucks for which it was essentially built.

In addition to a public acknowledgement of the support from three levels of government (four counting the Rural Municipality of Rosser) and the real economic impact of the existence of more than 1,000 commercial entities that now operate in CentrePort’s 20,000 acres, Edmundson’s remarks served as reminder to the large crowd in attendance the thing has really worked.

Despite the naysayers — who Edmundson correctly noted never actually provide anything constructive — more than $1 billion has been invested by the private sector over its 15-year history, developing more than three million square feet of mostly industrial space.

It’s all happened at a fairly steady pace over 15 years (much of it has been built in the last 10), but CentrePort’s success deserves to be celebrated more than it has.

That’s likely at least partially a function of the nose-to-the-grindstone character of the community and its avoidance of showing off.

“Manitoba can and should be a global leader in trade and transportation,” Edmundson said. “It’s been our destiny as a province for a long time.”

She noted in the conceptualizing phase, there could very well have been a decision made to constrain the land mass that would come under the auspices of the CentrePort Canada Act.

Regina’s Global Transportation Hub is 1,800 acres and the busy Port of Vancouver is located on just 1,600 acres.

It was out of character for a province that usually defaults to a more modest setting that such a large-scale initiative became the model.

“(The original committee whose work became the CentrePort concept) believed that a bold vision would invite big investment and big ideas and that it would make a big impact,” said Edmundson. “And 15 years later, we can see that going big and bold is paying off.”

Development is on pace to represent about $8 billion (or about 10 per cent) of the provincial GDP.

It’s not to say some of that investment might still have taken place either elsewhere in the capital region or in the same place without the supports CentrePort provides (such as an expedited single-desk planning process and physical infrastructure).

That support continues to be layered on.

Some would say it took too long, but sewer and water lines are now being built to allow for development on another 1,800 acres in what is referred to as CentrePort South (south of Selkirk Avenue and west of Route 90).

The $75-million civic works project will create 500 acres for residential development (future home for 8,000 to 12,000 people) and another 1,100 acres of industrial land.

The urban planning process might have imagined something different, but the prioritization on the development of industrial land has proved to be prescient.

Long part of the plan was the development of an industrial park where large-scale tenants would have direct access to the CPKC main line (and interchanges with CN and BNSF).

The 665-acre CentrePort Canada Rail Park was built on land CentrePort Canada Inc. owns (the only part of the 20,000 acres it does) and its developer has already officially announced two tenants and has indicated it has a promising pipeline of interested parties.

These would be very large “tenants,” requiring many acres which would typically mean after construction they would require many workers.

Winnipeg’s population is growing and the existence of CentrePort provides capacity to handle that growth.

It was a rare episode of visionary planning that created CentrePort and it took several years of snarky backlash before there was anything the public could see and appreciate.

Edmundson’s advocacy for a grander vision of Winnipeg is not what we’re typically used to hearing. But as she said: “Winnipeggers deserve something nice, too.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca