Winnipeg, Urban Decay, and Other Cities

[GCJenks]

2 hours ago, Brandon said:

 

Face it, downtown is a dump and Winnipeg is not a place where people want to come and visit.  It's the truth. 

Have you ever been down Hastings/East Hastings in Vancouver/Burnaby? Makes our downtown look like the Garden of Eden and it's cleaned up from what it was 10 years ago. I do business with 3 locations along that strip and it is not uncommon for the metal roller shutters to stay closed all day while people work inside and the rear parking areas are 10ft fences with barbed wire on top.

Winnipeg is in no way the worst downtown in the country and is not what keeps people from coming here. Weather, ignorance and the perception of what it is like here are what keep people away. 

[Mark H.]

22 minutes ago, Brandon said:

1 - Yes but in the context of tourism and attracting people,  extremely poor ticket sales is an indicator that it is not bringing in tourists.    So it is a complete failure in that regards and in the context of "profitability" it's an even bigger failure.  I didn't even go into the scandals within the museum and the racism issues it has experienced within.  In all facets this museum is a huge fail.  

2 - I pointed this out earlier. 

1. The primary function of any museum is to preserve heritage and educate the public. Expecting a high degree of economic impact through tourism, is a recent shift and actually a fairly new idea.  

2. You pointed out government subsidy as if it were a negative. It's the norm for any museum - they all get subsidies.  That's why I could rent two rooms at the MB. museum this past Friday, and also have my students complete a scavenger hunt of the galleries, all for $13 per student, plus 5 free chaperones. We were at the museum from 9:30 - 3:00; per hour, per student, that's ridiculously low, and I greatly appreciate it. 

[HardCoreBlue]

7 minutes ago, Mark H. said:

1. The primary function of any museum is to preserve heritage and educate the public. Expecting a high degree of economic impact through tourism, is a recent shift and actually a fairly new idea.  

2. You pointed out government subsidy as if it were a negative. It's the norm for any museum - they all get subsidies.  That's why I could rent two rooms at the MB. museum this past Friday, and also have my students complete a scavenger hunt of the galleries, all for $13 per student, plus 5 free chaperones. We were at the museum from 9:30 - 3:00; per hour, per student, that's ridiculously low, and I greatly appreciate it. 

Mark H. you are one fine educator. Thank you for your service. I mean that.

[bustamente]

I would like to see what they do with Portage Place and the Bay before we kill off downtown, Workers re populating the downtown may never happen to prior numbers but there's no reason that it can't be a safe destination with different attraction and dining options just needs the right direction from people running this city and private business.

[Rich]

39 minutes ago, bustamente said:

I would like to see what they do with Portage Place and the Bay before we kill off downtown, Workers re populating the downtown may never happen to prior numbers but there's no reason that it can't be a safe destination with different attraction and dining options just needs the right direction from people running this city and private business.

Does anyone know if the vacancy rate of downtown has recovered since the pandemic?   I know there has been a mix of companies that have gone completely back to in office and some that have stayed hybrid remote (which require less overall office space).

Wondering if it is time to come up with a new vision of a downtown that isn't primarily focused on a 9 - 5 work crowd.  The need for all those business to be focused in a small area seems to not be what it once was.

[Brandon]

6 hours ago, GCJenks said:

Have you ever been down Hastings/East Hastings in Vancouver/Burnaby? Makes our downtown look like the Garden of Eden and it's cleaned up from what it was 10 years ago. I do business with 3 locations along that strip and it is not uncommon for the metal roller shutters to stay closed all day while people work inside and the rear parking areas are 10ft fences with barbed wire on top.

Winnipeg is in no way the worst downtown in the country and is not what keeps people from coming here. Weather, ignorance and the perception of what it is like here are what keep people away. 

Yes most big cities do have terrible areas within downtown that normal people would avoid at all costs ,  the "bad" area.  But would you say 100% of Vancouver downtown is like this?    I have never directly gone to East Hastings so I can go only go by stories and the videos on the net,  but from what I understood it is a small area full of heroin addicts and it's terrible... but then you cross the tracks or move a few blocks and you are back to million dollar beautiful buildings and back to normal people.  It's funny that you say Garden of Eden.... I have gone to Stanley Park and it's a beautiful area that I found completely safe so... yes Vancouver does have a garden of eden lol.  Vancouver downtown has large areas with a huge amount of foot traffic and extremely nice and expensive places to live.   Clearly far more people desire to visit and live in downtown Vancouver then Winnipeg and it's not because of "perception". 

Once again... I challenge you to name me any area of Winnipeg downtown that is the  "hot" place to visit and where at all times it has foot traffic and people wanting to live.   Winnipeg downtown from every corner is dead and a dump.    Maybe the Forks if that counts as downtown is the only area with a pulse. 

 

 

[Brandon]

7 hours ago, Rich said:

Does anyone know if the vacancy rate of downtown has recovered since the pandemic?   I know there has been a mix of companies that have gone completely back to in office and some that have stayed hybrid remote (which require less overall office space).

Significantly worse and this is why the City/Province is trying to force people to come back to work downtown.   I can only speak looking in from an IT perspective,  but with everything moving to the cloud and without the need of having IT equipment on site and the ability to staff your positions across the country (or world).  The need for a physical building decreases every day.  

On one project that I was involved with they moved 100 staff out of a floor in a building downtown to work from home and the cost savings was approximately 5 million per year.   It is so much cheaper for a company to buy desk/chair and pay for everyones internet then for them to maintain a building and the infrastructure.  

Quote

Wondering if it is time to come up with a new vision of a downtown that isn't primarily focused on a 9 - 5 work crowd.  The need for all those business to be focused in a small area seems to not be what it once was.

It needs a radical change,  they need to make downtown an area that people want to hang out or preferably live in.    They attempted to revive downtown in the 80's with Portage Place failed and retail now is even further dead so retail is out of the question.  

My radical idea to revitalize downtown is the following: 

1 - Zero tolerance on public intoxication/drugs and pan handling harassment.  It's absolutely critical that they crack down on this before anything else.   Ideally the Federal Gov't/Provincial Gov't would update the justice system so rather then sending people to jail they would be forced to get clean at a rehab facility.   Build a rehab facility out of town (NIMBY naturally) where people can get clean and healthy.   I just came back from Mexico and when we went to the downtown for tourists I saw plenty of security and was approached by zero drunk/methed up people.  I felt significantly more safe despite seeing a guy with an AK-47 protecting the jewelry store.  

2 - Close down motor traffic on Broadway from Donald to Osborne from May - September or maybe even year round.  Make this our version of Sparks St in Ottawa.   Have street festivals and restaurants with extended patios in the summer.   The city has loads of parking nearby and make this a place that people to visit and walk up and down the strip.  

3 - All 3 levels of the Gov't work with buying Portage Place and making this a University of Winnipeg International students destination.  From what I understand Portage place was designed so that condos/appartments can be build on top of each end.   The U of M have a large amount of international students coming in with huge money behind them crowding into houses and attending schools.   Get these students to come downtown with their big money and live in the housing that will be build atop Portage Place.  It would be in close proximity to the current U of W and the injection of cash from  young 18 - 30 year olds living downtown would be a huge boom that would help fill out all those empty buildings along Portage.  

4 - Launch a new "touch the universe" / science museum / childrens / agriculture Manitoba museum.    The current childrens museum we have is absolutely garbage.  Over the last five years we visited a number of other  childrens museums in the States that were heavily packed full of tourists and families.   It wasn't like they were doing anything insanely expensive but had really fun interactive activities and educational.   5 or so years ago I was fortunate to attend the Opaskwayak Indigenous days and they had really neat little activities such as learning how to bead ,  cook,  hunt, dance ,  etc...    It's a huge miss opportunity to do something similar in town with fun interactive stations.  They could have a section on farming with large interactive exhibits which many other childrens museum already have.    Etc...    A place to bring families to Winnipeg or into downtown for the local citizens. 

But alas all of that cost money and Winnipeg is broke and is extremely poor so it would require the Feds to pump in huge dollars.   

Instead the city will be to scared to fight the homeless/drunk/panhandling epidemic and will suggest cheap stupid ideas such as opening Portage and Main and will continue to stall on making any drastic changes and downtown will continue to rot.  

 

For fun I include a few pics of Sparks street to show what it is like: 

 

Edited February 23 by Brandon

[FrostyWinnipeg]

15 hours ago, Brandon said:

Once again... I challenge you to name me any area of Winnipeg downtown that is the  "hot" place to visit and where at all times it has foot traffic and people wanting to live.   

Corydon?

[Brandon]

9 minutes ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Corydon?

It's not downtown and also that stretch is slowly fading away.   A few of the business owners wanted to create more patios and more foot traffic but the locals in the area put up a stink against it because they didnt' want the increased noise at night.  

[Piggy 1]

When did this turn into the politics thread  2.0 ???