Transforming the Exchange District

Transforming a long-standing industrial bus mall into a people-first destination street was never going to be easy. For three decades, buses ran up and down Graham Avenue, delivering some 100,000 transit users to and from the area each day. When the transit master plan took buses off the street last July, something new had to be done.

As the saying goes, nature abhors a vacuum. That’s never been truer than when it comes to the downtown, hence the mandate from city council to CentreVenture to begin short-term activation and long-term planning for Graham.

Now, four months on, people are rightfully asking, What’s happening on Graham Avenue?

To start, let’s look at what’s been done so far.

Visitors will have noticed the four-block stretch going east-west between Carlton and Garry remain closed to traffic. Instead of vehicles, a pedestrian corridor with trees, shrubs, boulders and circular benches aid in placemaking, and new light installations beneath the skywalk and custom circular light structures illuminate the street.

Additionally, Storefront Manitoba’s Cool Gardens competition resulted in three landscape art installations, and Cool Streets engaged local artists to paint colourful murals on the roadway.

But we know a vibrant pedestrian corridor requires more than just ping-pong tables, paint and planters. It needs people — hundreds of pedestrians visiting the area each day to accomplish the much-needed activation.

To that end, in conjunction with the City of Winnipeg and True North Sports & Entertainment, street festivals, markets and championship weekends were held throughout the summer. Going forward, an event plan is in place to attract seasonal activities to take us through the winter months. Watch for coming holiday markets and recreational events during the cold season.

Yet long-term vibrancy requires even more than what a robust events calendar can provide. To truly activate Graham Avenue, and for all of downtown for that matter, we need consistent, unplanned and routine activity happening seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. Something that will create a safe, welcoming vibe even when there are no festivals, sporting events, or concerts.

How do we accomplish this?

It’s about building a downtown with enough density to attract and retain retail, restaurants and revenue-generating activities all year long. A place where buildings define the spaces surrounding it, creating a sense of community and bringing people to the street. It’s about breathing new life into vacant or derelict buildings and seeing vibrant developments break up clusters of surface parking lots in key locations.

It’s about bringing the 80,000 workers back into the downtown and creating homes for another 15,000 people to achieve a year-round community of 35,000 strong. It’s about breathing new life into near-empty historic churches, and replacing boarded-up buildings with new tenancies.

Have we reached this goal yet? Not even close. Can we point to the pilot pedestrian corridor on Graham Avenue as a success? In short — not yet.

Yes, the challenge is real. It is visible in the boarded-up buildings, shuttered retail, and struggling bars and restaurants. More heartbreakingly so, it’s also visible in the number of unhoused people in the downtown.

Yet two things can be true at the same time.

It’s hard not to see the entire downtown in transition. Much like Graham, this transformation takes time, energy, and investment. And, perhaps equally important, the right plan: one that recognizes that successful downtowns are more than just centres of commerce and cultural and entertainment hubs. To be truly successful, downtowns — much like successful pedestrian streets — need to become community gathering places with an abundance of mixed-use spaces, vibrant tenancies, and people.

To that end, we see this kind of development transforming the landscape in the Exchange District with Market Lands. Its completion will bring 350 new residential units and a food and cultural hub to the area. Work is also underway on the transformation of Portage Place with another 216 housing units being built alongside venues that will attract 7,000 people every day. Railside at the Forks intends to offer approximately 1,000 new units of housing when complete, and Southern Chiefs’ Organizatinon’s landmark project for economic and social reconciliation at Wehwehneh Bahgahkinahgohn will see another 362 new residential units built. Add into the mix some smaller projects, like the conversion of a few smaller office buildings into residences, the revitalization of a once-derelict heritage building at 138 Portage Ave., and the infill development on a former surface parking lot, and we can point to the overall creation of nearly 2,000 new residential units being built over the next few years.

Will this be enough to create a safe, welcoming, revitalized downtown? Will it provide the answer to all the woes on Graham Avenue?

Probably not. No one said building a pedestrian corridor and revitalizing a downtown after a calamitous pandemic would be easy. But I hope we can all agree these are steps in the right direction.

Rochelle Squires is the CEO of CentreVenture Development Corporation. She can be reached at squires@centreventure.com