Second Cargo Bar first to open in Southwood Circle

Beer, bands and a repurposed shipping container boasting taps will kick off business in a massive development near the University of Manitoba.

Winnipeg’s second Cargo Bar aims to open Friday.

“I feel as though we’re the first thing in an exciting development,” said Cory Bartell, a Cargo Bar co-owner. “The scope of this project is pretty big.”

He sat at Cargo Bar’s new location in Southwood Circle, which has been touted as the city’s largest infill project. The 112-acre development is advertised to have more than 12 million square feet available for housing, businesses and institutional space. It will consume land formerly home to a golf course.

Cargo Bar has planted its new shipping-container-turned-bar off Markham Road and Sidney Smith Street, near the Princess Auto Stadium. Much of the land around it is untouched.

But inside Cargo Bar’s fenced area — about 15,000 sq. ft. — workers are making tracks. Lights have been strung, picnic tables unloaded.

It’s a bigger space than Cargo Bar’s Assiniboine Park footprint, which has become a summertime staple over the past six years. Some 20,000 people — including repeat customers — visit the outdoor patio near the duck pond annually, said co-owner Jennifer Mathieson.

“I feel as though we’re the first thing in an exciting development.”

She wasn’t looking to add a new locale — she runs her own event company and volunteers heavily in the cheerleading community. But Bartell came to her with a pitch: why not open Cargo Bar in Southwood Circle?

He wasn’t a co-owner then. He was, however, a cheerleading dad.

“I was the only dad that would travel with the team,” Bartell said with a laugh. “My daughter was young.”

He’d gotten to know Mathieson and her husband Graeme — also a Cargo Bar co-owner — through cheer. When he started a brewery during the COVID-19 pandemic, FullGeek BrewLab, Cargo Bar stocked his wares. (He also works in the Free Press mail room.)

FullGeek BrewLab held a beer garden in the Southwood Circle area years ago. A contact from UM Properties, which owns the land, reached out recently about opening a more permanent hub. So Bartell went to Mathieson.

“I felt as though I needed to jump on it,” he said. “Hopefully, we can draw some attention to what’s happening around here and grow.”

Phase 1 of Southwood Circle has been unrolling. New roads are paved; sewer and water hook-ups have been installed for roughly one-third of the developable land.

Cargo Bar held three pop-up events last year. Ownership has now signed a five-year lease.

The new space can fit 500 people. There’s room for a VIP area and a stage for bands, Bartell said. Cargo Bar can expand beyond its fence if leadership wants to host festivals and other events, he added.

For now, he’s focused on launching. The bar will stock more FullGeek brews than the park location but will generally have the same menu.

Food truck options will change throughout the summer, Mathieson said. She’s hoping to keep the seasonal bar open until October, for University of Manitoba traffic.

The post-secondary counts around 32,000 students.

As Southwood Circle development ramps up, Mathieson said she’s hoping to draw “everybody” from the surrounding neighbourhoods.

“We’re hoping here that we see the same sustainability present itself over the five years.”

Some customers took boats from the Pony Corral Restaurant on Pembina Highway to a Southwood Circle dock, via the Red River, during Cargo Bar’s past pop-ups.

“We really genuinely enjoy what we do at Assiniboine Park,” Mathieson said. “We’re hoping here that we see the same sustainability present itself over the five years.”

Visions of Southwood Circle have been scaled back since the development’s 2023 announcement.

UM Properties, a company controlled by a University of Manitoba trust, leads the project. It has zoning approval for 11,500 housing units. However, the number built will likely fall to around 8,000 spaces, said president Greg Rogers.

Imagined high-rises may actually be shorter buildings, at least in the upcoming years, he added.

Construction costs rose 4.1 per cent year-over-year at the end of 2025, according to Statistics Canada’s building construction price index. Inflation has been notable over several years.

“Developers are finding different ways of dealing with that,” Rogers said.

Overall, Southwood Circle development could take 25 years. There will likely be several economic cycles during that period, altering the project’s makeup, Rogers said.

He expects construction of the first apartments and condominiums to begin next year. Tenants could start arriving in 2028, a Southwood Circle website says.

“The intention and vision of it remaining a walkable, bikeable community where you don’t need your car as much because you can walk to a grocery store … remains intact,” Rogers said.

Southwood Circle’s parkland, with active transport paths, opened last year. There’s around 30 acres of parkland, Rogers said.

Cargo Bar is the first business to open in Southwood Circle. It’ll operate from noon to 10 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays.

Ownership has spent around $100,000 on the new space, Mathieson said.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com