_urbanite
Senior Member
It's almost like LaSalle they didn't do any market research at all when they purchased this asset and now seemed shocked at the level of vagrancy and disorder Downtown
- Thread starter Daveography
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CaptainBL
Active Member
LaSalle finalized the acquisition of the mall in November 2019 which means they probably had been looking at the property at least 1-2 years going back to some point early in 2018.
No amount of due diligence and research during that time period would've predicted how 2020 to today has turned out and if they had done enough research to had known that a global pandemic would wipe out downtowns then they would have had a crystal ball.
The state of CCM has nothing to do with how much due diligence and research they had done during that time period before acquiring and has a lot more to do with how they are planning to solutionize their problem/investment moving forward.
_urbanite
Senior Member
The vagrancy issues didn't just pop up during COVID. Sure, it got worse during COVID, but any due dillegence done in 2019 would've uncovered the vagrancy issues at that time too, which were bad enough to scare off potential buyers.
David A
Senior Member
I do agree it would have been very hard to predict the situation over the last few years in 2019 or earlier, so I certainly don't fault them for that. I also feel at this point the worst is over.
This is definitely not something unique to Edmonton, most major cities in Canada have had to deal with serious social problems and other issues in their downtown's in recent years. So if someone in Winnipeg is now confident enough to reinvest in the downtown mall, I feel we should take that as a good sign for the near future here too.
dunno
Active Member
They haven't. It's moving slower than the Southern Manitoba Chiefs anticipated (they only got official title to the building last month), that's all.
The Chipmans (the people behind this plan for Portage Place) are some of the wealthiest people in Winnipeg and behind a lot of previous investments, including getting the Jets back to the city and an arena adjacent development called True North Square. TNS is essentially a smaller scale version of Ice District, right down to the central plaza, overpriced grocery store, and preference for banks and bars as CRUs due to being close to the NHL arena. Mark Chipman is kind of like a Winnipeg Daryl Katz (very roughly) and has an active interest in helping to revitalize Downtown Winnipeg, going back a while. This will also make their existing investments, which are near Portage Place, more attractive, which is no doubt part of their interest (there's already currently direct skyway access from Portage Place to Canada Life Centre). All of this is to say that this plan has far more teeth than the previous one from an Ontario developer with no local interest (and a pretty terrible track record out east) and so while I don't wanna call it, I do think the likelihood this sees the light of day (or some version of it) is pretty high.
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dunno
Active Member
One of the main differences is that there's been very public plans to redevelop Portage Place for years in a way we haven't seen with City Centre. All we've previously had are some "insiders" whispering essentially nothing to us on forums like this about "something big in the pipeline" that never sees the light of day. That, and this recent proposal comes from a wealthy Winnipegger with an active interest in Downtown revitalization, as seen in previous large investments in the vicinity. It'd be like if Daryl Katz bought up City Centre and proposed to redevelop it, basically. While that could theoretically happen, unless someone very wealthy is able to pull some strings with local gov't like with Ice District, I'd take what @CaptainBL said seriously. I don't expect the owners or local gov't on their own to do much in the near term, even if the situation isn't beyond repair like so many thought.
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David A
Senior Member
I think many aspects of what was done in Winnipeg make sense here too. I agree there are some differences and obviously the parties have come together in Winnipeg sooner, although my sense is they have also probably been dealing with this problem longer and their mall had problems sooner.
Whatever is worked out in Edmonton will probably have less involvement from the provincial government, because it doesn't seem to focus much on Edmonton, so that means the city will probably need to step up more, which I hope they are capable of doing.
Whatever is worked out in Edmonton will probably have less involvement from the provincial government, because it doesn't seem to focus much on Edmonton, so that means the city will probably need to step up more, which I hope they are capable of doing.
dunno
Active Member
Yeah Portage Place has been rocky for a bit. City Centre was ok 5-8 years ago. Issues started and then got torpedoed over the course of the pandemic. The biggest problem back then was the owners sitting on their hands so as to not let it get ahead of their other property a dozen blocks north.
I'm not saying the plan doesn't make sense in Edmonton. I'm merely pointing out that there's a reason this is happening there first.
dunno
Active Member
Yes, but the decline was slow. City Centre in 2015 was ok. Not WEM, Southgate, or Kingsway, but... fine. That's all.
David A
Senior Member
Yes, it was fairly slow until COVID, then it became fast. Along the lines of Winnipeg, it would be good to have a health centre here. It would also be nice to see the city support it by using a some store front spaces for some of its various bodies, community groups/not for profit orgs to better interact with the public.
I think as long as the west side is so empty, having only one food court on the third floor of the east side is not the best idea, especially when the new LRT line opens. It would also make sense to open it up to the street.
The nearby office and residential towers do provide some customers probably more than currently in Winnipeg, but some changes are going to have to be made to make it more viable in the long term and delaying them may just prolong the current malaise.
I think as long as the west side is so empty, having only one food court on the third floor of the east side is not the best idea, especially when the new LRT line opens. It would also make sense to open it up to the street.
The nearby office and residential towers do provide some customers probably more than currently in Winnipeg, but some changes are going to have to be made to make it more viable in the long term and delaying them may just prolong the current malaise.
dunno
Active Member
There's a fair bit of offices and residences near Portage Place, and the people who live immediately north of the mall are probably the most predominant patrons of the mall now. City Centre still has more of the office crowd who in Winnipeg would go to Cityplace and Winnipeg Square (other, smaller downtown malls).
Gronk!
Senior Member
There is supposedly an advanced polling station at ECC if anyone is interested although I have no idea where it is located
David A
Senior Member
I went through the mall again today and it was not just busy, but very busy at lunch time.
MisterSartorial
New Member
As someone who lives in the area, and used to work in the mall, I appreciate how busy it gets at lunch, but unfortunately it doesn't do much for shops. They can't staff for 90 minutes a day and that is certainly when they do most of their business. Although I think offices returning headcount downtown is helpful it really takes all hours traffic to develop sustainability for new tenants to come to ECC. I have a feeling that this revitalization is going to be slow and stuttering, but I remain optimistic. Best thing would be for ECC to convert to mixed use with residential to reduce the number of vacant shops and distribute the demand to the many other vacant CRUs in the buildings around ECC. I don't think the shopping mall model is going to continue to be effective for them. Perhaps they just need to support moving all of their tenants to one half of the mall and then redeveloping the other (as others have mentioned a while back), but unfortunately all of the most "premier" tenants (banks and telcos) are in the West part of the mall, and some of them rather recent (RBC) so it's likely hard to consolidate into the East side. I keep hoping!
David A
Senior Member
I realize how hard to get past the still prevailing pessimism. This was a fairly successful mall for decades and I am sure it was always the case of quite busy peak activity was around lunch hour, actually much like it seemed today. So yes, they actually can staff for busy periods.
People are coming back downtown. I realize this is happening over time (a bit more every day and week), so it will take a while for retailers and everyone else to catch up, but it is happening now.
For those of you here who don't like any good news, sorry if I ruined your day.
People are coming back downtown. I realize this is happening over time (a bit more every day and week), so it will take a while for retailers and everyone else to catch up, but it is happening now.
For those of you here who don't like any good news, sorry if I ruined your day.