Some not so great news in the Freep today about the new Waterfront developments:
Waterfront Drive hasn't been the retail magnet some developers expected it to be.
Although the residential condominiums have been selling well, the same can't be said of the roughly 35,450 square feet of commercial space that's available in the four new residential/commercial developments along the Exchange District thoroughfare.
Only about one-third (10,500 square feet) of the space has been spoken for, and the bulk of that -- 7,500 square feet -- has been taken by Friesen Tokar Architects, developer of The Strand complex at Waterfront Drive and James Avenue.
The other 3,000 square feet, all in the Ship Street Village complex at Waterfront Drive and McDermot Avenue, has been taken by two retailers -- Tanya Thiessen, owner of a small chain of Winnipeg beauty salons, and Pinny Vardi, a transplanted Israeli entrepreneur.
In a bid to spark interest and fill more space, the developers and CentreVenture Development Corp. -- the arm's-length civic body overseeing the development of Waterfront Drive -- are joining forces to develop a marketing strategy for the commercial space.
Among the ideas being discussed are subsidizing the rent or paying the property taxes for the retail tenants until the first phase of the fourth and final project -- The Sky Waterfront at Waterfront Drive and Pacific Avenue -- is complete in 2009. That should give the retailers the critical mass -- about 181 residential units -- they need to sustain their operations, said Ross McGowan, CentreVenture's chief executive officer. The second phase of the Sky project, which could get underway in 2009 or 2010, will add another 27 residential condos.
McGowan said CentreVenture and the developers would likely split the cost of the subsidies and/or tax breaks. They also talked about the need to establish an identity for the area so they know how to market it and the type of retailers to target.
"We talked about creating a wish list of what we want the area to be -- another Corydon Avenue, a restaurant row, or maybe a service-driven area. What we all concluded was we don't want it to be office space."
Some examples of the kinds of businesses they hope to attract are a specialty foods/wine store, some restaurants, some coffee shops and a florist shop.
McGowan said he's not surprised by the slow take-up on the commercial space. However, the president of the Winnipeg firm that developed The Excelsior -- Sherwood Developments Ltd. -- said he's puzzled by the response. Especially given the street's riverside location and its close proximity to the commercial heart of Winnipeg -- Portage and Main.
I saw the chart quoting various prices for retail space in downtown Winnipeg...not sure how accurate it is, but assuming it's correct then I'm not surprised that no one will pay $20 psf for Waterfront Drive space when no one wants to pay $10 psf for A & B Sound's old building on Portage. The residential and office population in that area is too low to support significant retail...it takes many condos and apartment blocks, not just a couple of small buildings.
Well one thing they're forgetting are the houses in the rest of downtown and across the river where I live - St.Boniface. I personally drive by there all the time, and if there were some conveniences there I'd certainly shop there. (Especially since there aren't that many on Provencher)
Seriously. There are not enough units there to support anything more than a paper stand.
The only think that will work are a series of unique shops, art galleries or restaurants all working together drawing Winnipeggers from abroad. To get an entrepreneur to lease the spaces, the rents will have to be at market at not what the developer needs to break even. I like the CentreVenture ideas of bringing down the economic rents to make it feasible. Create the plan, leverage the right economics, and people will come.
Agreed on the low number of units. It would be nice to put up an apartment with smaller living spaces to better increase the number of people living downtown.
There are not enough people living downtown to support all the retail space on Waterfront drive let alone the rest of the area. Putting a strip of retail there was not the smartest idea as it is at the edge of downtown and can only have retail on one side of the street as there is a park on the other side.
One-sided retail does not work for a lot of reasons, but I think that it is mostly because people like shopping in district where there is constant visual stimulation. If one side of the street is just a bunch of trees and paths that isn't much to see, even if it is a view of the River. When one is on a two sided retail district you are constantly drawn to something on the other side of the street so you meander back and forth more, exposing more businesses to your eyes.
"What the heck? How come that comes out as one big chunk?"
Try checking that the visual-whatever setting Off in your account preferences, and then you have to make sure the Format comments as Text button is selected. I haven't a clue what function it serves, but there it is.
thats is a lot of space. Unless it was a little green grocer (a proper mini mart not a 7-11) or something I can't see renting them all out as small individual units especially when you have all sorts of places around there with small units - concourse, forks etc.
I don't think a lot of the main floor retail has been filled in the new condo on boul Provencher yet either. There was a rumour of a big pub but apparently that's in the one that's not been built yet.
If there weren't enough people working downtown to support food and retail, then obviously Portage Place, cityplace, Winnipeg Square and the shops on Portage, Graham, Ellice, etc. would be empty. However, the difference is that the working people are not really anywhere near Waterfront Drive. Who would set up shop on Waterfront with a daily pedestrian count which probably remains in the double-digits in the winter when they could set up in Portage Place for the same price?
There is a decent hub of workers along Rorie Street (in the Grain Exchange Bldg., the Marshall-Wells Building and some other smaller buildings), but Waterfront is a little out of the way for them. I'm sure the spots will eventually get filled, but the process will be slow if landlords won't adjust their rents.
Its going to be a tough sell for sure, especially in the dead of winter. With the ballpark and the river walkways pretty much shut down foot traffic is almost nil I think. I use Waterfront everyday to get home to Transcona and traffic going up and down Waterfront is not that heavy either. This one definitely will require some creative thinking to make it work!
That strip needs an anchor tenant just like a mall does, which it does not have now. I thought that they were turning one of the older buildings into some sort of brew pub. That would be a sort of Anchor operation. Without density there has to be some sort of draw to people from the rest of the city, like a hub of restaurants or eclectic stores. Problem is no one is willing to be the first to set up shop except for the hairdresser and israli guy mentioned in the paper...I guess its a start.
Places like that don't thrive on just the neighborhood business, they need walkthrough business as well, and from what I remember that area isn't a conduit that people use to get from A to B, so there's no real reason for people to pass. Is that still the case?
Royal plans for the Albert<p> But new owner vows popular music venue will remain<p>
THE new owner of the Royal Albert Arms plans to invest as much as $2 million on the 94-year-old Exchange District landmark, while continuing to book punk, indie-rock and metal acts in its mainfloor bar. <p>
Internet drug entrepreneur Daren Jorgenson said in an interview Monday he wants to turn the venerable inn into a boutique hotel, modelled somewhat after Toronto's Drake Hotel.<p>
He plans to rip off the atrium that juts onto the sidewalk, pull out the VLTs and restore the four-storey building's exterior to its original 1913 form. He's also looking at installing geothermal heating for the hotel and the five-storey building that he owns next door, which houses the Vault Salon and Spa.<p>
Jorgenson takes possession of the hotel on Jan. 2. He paid $900,000 for it.<p>
"I think the properties in this area are undervalued," he said. "You can buy properties in this area now for $35 a square foot. You'd pay that in rent in Calgary in one year."<p>
There are signs the area is on the upswing. Just down the street, at Albert and Notre Dame, immigration lawyer Ken Zaifman is planning similar upgrades to the St. Charles Hotel. Meanwhile, several trendy boutiques have recently sprouted up in the neighbourhood.<p>
"It will be very, very edgy," Jorgenson said of The Albert, noting The Drake, which it is modelling itself after, has sex toys on the room service menu.<p>
But he said he will fight to ensure the hotel doesn't become "too trendy" or mainstream.<p>
"The Royal Albert will never be a place where you can order a $1,000 bottle of champagne. It's never going to happen," he vowed.<p>
The businessman, 40, said he will take his time in refurbishing the hotel, seeking input from Heritage Winnipeg and the community at large. <p>
"I don't think the Royal Albert is the type of business that you just buy and then sit down in a boardroom for eight hours, decide what needs to be done and then you just add water and money and then, poof, it's there," Jorgenson said, noting the hotel's importance to the local music scene.<p>
"And knowing we want to keep it a punk-rock, metal venue, you got to take your time."<p>
(con’t)<p> Jorgenson said the hotel's second floor will have kitchen facilities and will be available for booking art shows "or overflow from the bar on the weekends and that kind of stuff."<p>
That will create a buffer between the mainfloor bar and the new rooms that will be built on the third and fourth floors -- although he envisions the people booking the rooms will not be "necessarily concerned with having a good night's sleep."<p>
Jorgenson has retained Sam Smith, The Albert's in-house artistic director the past four and a half years, to continue booking musical acts.<p>
"We're pretty much going to stay the course," Smith said of the room's music, which ranges from punk and metal to hip hop, indie rock and "post-rock."<p>
That will be good news to Albert devotees, who feared they would lose an important venue when word got out this summer that it would be turned into a boutique hotel -- generally, a smaller, more intimate, often upscale hotel that is not part of a chain.<p>
I honestly don't see how he is going to reconcile a punk/hard rock room with a boutique hotel. In my experience, boutique hotel patrons tend to be looking for luxury and tranquility - neither of which I'd associate with the former. Good luck to him.
What's the status on the St. Charles Hotel? I thought that it was a dead duck given that it could not fulfill the golden commandment of downtown Winnipeg development, i.e. thou shalt destroy a building first before thou doeth anything else at all.
Also, is the Oxford Hotel still used for hotel purposes (even SRO)? With the refurbishment of the Lindsay Building and the apparent upgrading of the Royal Albert and St. Charles, the Oxford could become a great little hotel/hostel for budget travellers, like the kind you see all over Europe. I have no objection to the peeler bar per se, but it would be nice to see the whole building get used instead of just the main floor.