Housing coming to old police station site

Fort Garry

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This article was published 18/02/2026 (204 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brokenhead Ojibway Nation is moving ahead with plans to redevelop the long‑vacant former police station at 1350 Pembina Hwy, and it has unveiled a mixed‑use, affordable-housing project that city staff say will help meet local housing needs.

Last year, the City of Winnipeg made five city-owned properties available for sale or lease to encourage affordable housing development. Non-profits, Indigenous organizations, and housing developers could apply. The sites were available through the city’s Housing Accelerator Fund Land Enhancement Office, funded by the federal government’s $4.4 billion Housing Accelerator Fund.

On July 28, 2025 the city announced that Brokenhead Ojibway Nation would lead the development of the project at 1350 Pembina Hwy.

I attended the Nov. 24, 2025 public hearing on the project, at which Mike Lennon, a program support specialist with the HAF, explained that the plan is to turn the former police station, vacant since 2013, into a high-rise (up to 15 storeys), 144‑unit mixed‑income residential complex. At least 30 per cent of the units will be designated affordable housing.

“At minimum, that means 43 apartments will meet the affordability criteria,” Lennon added.

Rents for those units will be set at 80 per cent of median market rates, with the option for deeper affordability. He described it as a major step toward increasing affordable and market housing supply in a growing area of the city.

Lennon said the site is an ideal location for higher‑density housing. It is on a transit‑oriented, amenity‑rich corridor directly across from a supermarket and adjacent to multiple bus routes, a high school, a community centre, a library, a pool, and a strip of commercial services. He added that the surrounding neighbourhood already includes a mix of multi‑family developments, including an 11‑storey hotel and several apartment buildings constructed within the past decade.

The City Centre community committee concurred with the recommendation of the city’s public service to approve the subdivision and rezone the site to commercial mixed use.

Some property lines will be adjusted to create a new public lane behind the development, which serve as the main access point for the building’s parking and as a traffic entry point away from Pembina Highway.

Public lane construction is planned to begin this summer. The design of the building will be finalized and submitted to the City Centre community committee for approval this summer or fall. Construction of the development is set to begin after all aspects of the project are approved.