Stubborn projects back on to-do list

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This article was published 01/05/2009 (6126 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CENTREVENTURE is pursuing new plans to redevelop Alexander Docks and the James Avenue pumping station, two of the most stubborn projects on downtown’s revitalization wish list.

Winnipeg’s downtown development agency is weighing a new restaurant/marina proposal for the 80-year-old Alexander Docks on the Red River and is studying whether to spend its own money renovating the pumping station, a vacant 103-year-old heritage property that has caused headaches for the city for almost a decade.

In 2001, the Pony Corral restaurant chain bought the pumping station for $150,000 with the intention of converting it into a nightclub. Three years later, the city wound up buying the station back for $750,000, minus a large piece of historical pumping machinery the former owners removed and donated to a heritage museum in Austin.

Subsequent attempts to sell an entrepreneur on the station have failed, leading CentreVenture president Ross McGowan to muse whether it makes more sense for the agency to fix up the building itself and then market the near-finished product.

“We’re going to study the issue this year,” McGowan said Thursday at CentreVenture’s annual general meeting at the Pantages Playhouse.

The agency would like to see a brew pub take over the space, given the success breweries have had in former pumping stations in other cities.

An informal pitch was made to Winnipeg’s Half Pints Brewery but the microbrewery’s owners were not interested, McGowan confirmed.

CentreVenture is also weighing a new Alexander Docks proposal from an international group that had previously pitched the city on a plan to build a $4-million Red River basin interpretive centre at the site.

In early 2008, city planners rejected a previous version of this plan on the grounds it would not bring enough pedestrian traffic to the riverfront site, which the city considers a potential tourist attraction.

Last summer, the city signed off on a CentreVenture-brokered deal that would have seen Liberal Senator Rod Zimmer build a $10-million supper club and marina at the docks. But that plan died in January, when Zimmer told the city his silent partners didn’t have the cash.

Now, the Red River basin group is back with a new proposal that includes a restaurant and modest public docks, McGowan said.

“If we can massage their concept, I think it could work.”

CentreVenture will also focus its attention in 2009 on trying to rehabilitate the vacant Avenue Building, another revitalization-resistant spot. CentreVenture conditionally sold the Portage Avenue building to A.S.H. Management two years ago, but the sale fell through due to the absence of a tenant.

Within two weeks, CentreVenture also expects to make a formal announcement about the new United Way building slated for the corner of Alexander Avenue and Main Street.

The agency also hopes to see the conclusion to Red River College’s $30-million deal to convert the Union Bank Tower at Main Street and William Avenue into student housing and a culinary school. The project still requires some financing, college spokesman Colin Fast has said.

CentreVenture has an annual operating budget of approximately $750,000 and assets of approximately $14.8 million. It receives $100,000 in operating funding from the city every year.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca