Seniors housing that’s close to amenities

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/05/2019 (2372 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Once the location of regular Sunday worship services, an abandoned church site in St. Vital may become home to dozens of seniors.

Winnipeg’s TradeMark Homes is proposing a luxury four-storey apartment building with 82 suites for residents 55 and over on two Riel Avenue lots.

“It’s highly desirable for a senior,” said Greg Grewal, a partner with TradeMark Homes, which is planning the project, located across St. Mary’s Road from St. Vital Centre.

“Who wouldn’t want to live beside the amenities you need (like) doctors, dentists and shops? It’s right in the heart of St. Vital.”

The building, with an estimated cost of $8 million, and would include four ground-floor commercial spaces suitable for medical offices or other businesses, would be built on the site of a former Ukrainian Catholic church at 31 Riel Ave. and the residential lot just east of it.

St. John the Apostle Ukrainian Catholic Parish closed in 2017 after celebrating its 50th anniversary because the parish was no longer sustainable, said Rev. Mark Gnutel, vicar of property for the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Winnipeg.

Church members dispersed to other parishes, and the archeparchy sold the property after removing sacred objects and decommissioning the church building.

“That building was a Protestant church originally,” Gnutel said of the small one-storey stucco building, decorated with a simple steeple.

“There was nothing (in the building) identifying it as a Ukrainian Catholic parish.”

Grewal said the former church and the house next door at 25 Riel Ave. will be demolished once the project receives city approval.

The plans have been submitted to the city for variance and zoning approval, and construction would not start until 2020 at the earliest, said architect Sean Radford of AtLRG Architecture, Inc., estimating the project would take up to 18 months to build.

“We have several steps to go through with the city before we have full approval for the building,” Radford said.

The proposed L-shaped complex of one-, two- and three-bedroom suites, each decorated with high-end finishes and equipped with in-suite laundry, hugs the corner of the 5,580-square-metre property along Riel Avenue and Glen Meadow Street, across the street from Darwin Park.

The multiple gable rooflines on the brick and stucco building provide space for mezzanine levels in the fourth-floor suites, and blend into the mixture of architectural styles on the street, Radford said.

“We didn’t want to provide them with a flat-roof building that becomes this massive wall,” he said.

“We wanted to take a cue from the neighbourhood for the esthetic.”

Radford said the plan includes 50 surface parking spots behind the building, 48 underground spots, and several visitor spots.

Grewal and his associates presented the project to about 50 area residents at a community open house on May 1.

Many expressed concerns that dozens more residents on the street would increase traffic and make parking more difficult on Riel Avenue.

“Riel is a cut-through street already and so it is hard for us who live on it to get on it,” Karen Dyck said.

“Parking is horrendous,” neighbour Beverley Edwards added.

Residents were also concerned that the proposed apartment building will create more congestion near St. Mary’s Road, and make left turns at that uncontrolled intersection even more difficult.

Not all residents were opposed to the project. Some said they welcomed the development of a seniors building in the area, and others preferred housing on the property instead of an abandoned church.

“When I walk by Riel (Avenue) at night, I’d rather go past that with people in it, than an empty field with a church on it,” one resident attending the meeting said.

Grewal said he will take the residents’ traffic concerns into consideration and investigate other options for accessing the parking lot.

He believes this project fills a void in the community, and provides senior citizens looking to downsize the choice of staying in their neighbourhood.

“Here they have an opportunity to be in the community they’ve grown up in and have friends around and feel comfortable in their skin,” said Grewal, who lives in St. Vital.

faith@freepress.mb.ca