Bowman touts downtown grocery, dog park

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This article was published 12/09/2014 (4048 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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A grocery store. A community centre. An off-leash dog park.

Brian Bowman promised to bring all three features to downtown Winnipeg as he expanded on his revitalization plans for the area.

Accompanied by his wife, Tracy, and their miniature Labradoodle, Indiana, Bowman stood in a green space on Provencher Boulevard opposite the museum for human rights and said downtown Winnipeg needs to become a place for families and individuals if the city is to become a vibrant community.

Bowman said he knows that not everyone wants to live downtown, but his goal is to remove barriers for people that want to be there.

“Part of the attraction of having, especially young families in a growing city like Winnipeg, will be to increase the amenities for those people that are living downtown,” Bowman said.

Bowman’s plan includes:

• Working with The Forks to establish a community centre somewhere on the two large parking lots that are the subject of a massive mixed-use, public-private development project.
• Identifying city-owned facilities that could be opened up to the public for meeting spaces.
• Tasking Yes!Winnipeg, Economic Development Winnipeg, CentreVenture and the Downtown BIZ to attract a major grocery store chain to the downtown within the next two years.
• Establishing a fenced in, off-leash dog park.

Earlier in the week, Bowman announced a series of incentives designed to encourage development of additional housing units downtown which he said would increase the area’s population from 15,000 to 20,000 within five years.

Bowman said Friday that to reach the population targets, downtown will need the amenities he promised to establish.

CentreVenture already exploring grocery-store issue

Like his development incentives, however, similar to a 10-year-old promise from Sam Katz’s first mayoral campaign and more recent incentives approved by city hall, Bowman acknowledged that forces are already at work to accomplish part of his plan.

Bowman said The Forks has been working to establish a community centre as part of its Parcel 4/Rail Side lands development.

Bowman didn’t mention that city hall has already tasked CentreVenture to explore ways to attract a major grocery store chain downtown.

CentreVenture, along with The Forks, and the Downtown and Exchange District BIZ groups, commissioned a study last year that identified three areas in the downtown as likely sites for a 10,000 square-foot grocery but concluded incentives will likely be needed to land a chain store.

But Bowman repeated the promise he made at Wednesday night’s mayoral debate that he does not support incentives for grocery stores. He said he wants to create the conditions that will attract a major chain to locate in the area.

“We need to get more people living downtown to create the incentives and the market conditions,” that will attract a major grocery chain, he said. “I want to create the market conditions for something like this.”

The establishment of off-leash dog parks became a civic issue earlier this year, as a dog owners’ coalition extensively lobbied members of council to expand the number of off-leash parks across the city.

Bowman said the grassy area – land owned by The Forks — where he held his noon-hour event is a potential site for an off-leash dog park, adding he’ll work with others to identify other locations and settle on an area that will be fenced and lighted with access to water.

That area, adjacent to Stephen Juba Park, had been identified and promoted by city hall as  downtown’s only off-leash dog park. However, it is no longer included among the city’s directory of off-leash sites.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca