Post by mzappa on Oct 7, 2011 9:34:30 GMT -6
Great article:
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www.thestar.com/travel/northamerica/article/1066447--winnipeg-rises
Winnipeg Rises
Karen Burshtein Special to the Star
WINNIPEG—I was at a park with a friend and her baby the other day. I watched as the new walker took a few hesitant steps toward a shiny toy, her face a mixture of pride at her independence and a little trepidation at the unknown.
I perceived something similar in the faces of Winnipeggers last week as they took first steps en masse along Portage Ave. before an exhibition NHL hockey match: a little fear — and a little excitement. You see, Winnipeggers haven’t done downtown for a long time.
Even when the ice finally lets go of the pavement, and you can walk the wide expanse of Portage Ave. as God and urban planners intended, downtown Winnipeg has been mostly a ghost town, especially at night. There’s been nowhere to go, a point Air Canada seems to have made with its recent decision to have airline workers stay over at a hotel near the airport rather than sleep downtown. City officials have understandably reacted with outrage.
Downtown certainly has come a long way. But there was a time when it was THE place to be.
In the ’60s and ’70s, my grandmother dressed up when she went downtown. Everyone did. The stretch along Portage Ave. between Eaton’s and The Bay was brimming with city verve. Then Winnipeg became a victim of the doughnut effect, as urban scholars call the exodus of city dwellers to the suburbs.
Today, Winnipeggers, finally hip to the idea that a city can’t be a city without a centre, are watching as downtown enters what can only be called a new era. The most obvious impetus was, well, we all know because Winnipeggers have been shouting it loud enough: The return of the Jets.
The effect of the Winnipeg Jets’ departure in 1995 on the collective psyche cannot be overstated.
To the myths of Winnipeg as a place of irrepressible creativity and biblical mosquitos was added the subtext of hockey losers. For years, the city has been chanting for its return. All of a sudden it happened.
Then things started moving fast. Projects once debated, and left to fester, were officially announced one after another.
A happy consequence or a happy coincidence?
Stefano Grande, executive director of Downtown Winnipeg Biz, a public/private downtown development venture thinks it’s the latter.
“Many projects had been in the pipeline before the Jets were being announced, including a new entertainment district,” he said. “What the arrival of the Jets does is coincidentally legitimize these plans.”
The MTS Centre, opened in 2004 where Eaton’s once was. Home to the AHL’s Manitoba Moose, it has also been one of the most successful concert venues in North America. The new environmentally innovative Manitoba Hydro Building on Portage Ave. building has started bringing back office workers to the heart of downtown.
To the east, boarding the historic Exchange District, a waterfront condo development is bringing empty nesters downtown. A new apartment complex on Portage Ave. is also in the works.
The Forks, with its fabulous, revamped Children’s museum and world-class SkatePark, is another example of downtown Winnipeg’s sudden growth spurt. The elegant Provencher Bridge and the Canadian Museum For Human Rights slated to open in 2012, are vying to become city icons, usurping the Golden Boy that sits atop the Manitoba Legislative Building.
But the ball really began rolling after the Jets returned. The Metropolitan Theatre, a long boarded up heritage building, purchased in 2006 by a Winnipeg businessman, was given a $1.5 million grant by the city to transform it into an entertainment venue. The city coughed up the money with the stipulation the project be completed fast; 2013 is the projected date.
A chic Alt Hotel from the Quebec-based Germain Group was announced (though not opening till Sept 2013), its location incorporating the old Mitchell Coop building on Portage Ave. It’s across from the MTS Centre.
Still, the hotel group’s director of development, Hugo Germain, says, “Winnipeg was on our radar screen already.”
The arrival of the Jets is “nice gravy but we’d been visiting the past three years.”
Education and culture
Farther down Portage Ave., another chapter of the revitalization of downtown is taking place, a direct result of the University of Winnipeg’s downtown campus expansion. The school’s growth offensive has spawned the new Buhler Centre for Faculty of Business and Economics at the corner of Portage Ave. and Colony St. and the Richardson College for the Environment and Science Complex.
Within the striking Buhler building is the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, home to many of the artists who make up Winnipeg’s vibrant art scene. The building is next to the modernist Winnipeg Art Gallery; together they form a mini art hub on Portage Ave.
At this end of Portage Ave., cool places to eat and hang are also opening. Stella’s Cafe and Bakery, a favourite city breakfast and brunch place recently opened a location on the main level of the Buhler Centre.
Most exciting is Pop Soda Coffeehouse and Gallery at Portage Ave. and Furby St., which opened in September. The 7,000 sq-ft. cafe/restaurant also bills itself as an informal cultural community area offering studio spaces or just walls to paint on. Hipsters and students lie in hammocks or sit on retro couches reading or listening to Jazz. Owner Christine Boss took over a storefront that had been abandoned for 30 years.
“We thought they needed us down here,” she says. “I definitely see a lot of little business revitalizing the area.”
Karen Burshtein is a freelance writer based in xxx. Subsidy
JUST THE FACTS
SLEEPING Ft. Garry Hotel. An atmospheric former railway hotel on Broadway, a few blocks from Portage Ave. The hotel also has an ultra modern spa. www.fortgarryhotel.com. 222 Broadway. (204) 942-8251. Fairmont. The outpost of the luxury Fairmont brand is situated at the corner of Portage and Main. www.fairmont.com/Winnipeg. 2 Lombard Ave. (204) 957-1350. The Delta is behind the MTS Centre and adjacent to the Convention Centre. www.deltahotels.com. 350 St. Mary Ave. (204) 942-0551. An Alt Hotel is scheduled to open in 2013.
DINING Pop Soda's Coffeehouse & Gallery. New hot spot near happening University of Winnipeg offering Mediterranean-inspired fare and live music. 625 Portage Ave. (204) 415-7666. Salisbury House on the Provencher Bridge. The best branch of Winnipeg's iconic hamburger joint incorporated right into the Provencher Bridge which links the Forks to French speaking St. Boniface. Edohei. Sushi master Sadao Ono trained many of Winnipeg's sushi chefs. Now his son, 2006 Golden Plates Canadian Culinary Championship winner Makoto Ono, joins his father at his downtown restaurant. www.edohei.mb.ca. 55 Ellice Ave. (204) 943-0427. Peasant Cookery offers innovative upmarket takes on an international array of comfort food in a bistro setting in the Exchange District. www.peasantcookery.com. 283 Bannatyne Ave.
(204) 989-7700. East India Company is one f the city's best Indian buffets. www. eastindiaco.com. 349 York Ave. (204) 947-3097.
Lobby on York is a great cocktail bar and upscale fine dining choice for before or after a Jets game. www.lobbyonyork.com. 295 York Ave. (204) 896-7275. Dubrovnik is a 30 year old fixture in Winnipeg's fine dining scene is in an old mansion near the Assiniboine River on the southern edge of downtown. www. restaurantdubrovnik.com. 390 Assiniboine Ave. (204) 944-0594.
Stella's Cafe at Plug IN Stella's Bakery is consistently voted Winnipeg's best breakfast place. This outpost is open day and evening with a dinner menu that includes curries and chilies as well as their excellent soups and sandwiches. 460 Portage. (204) 772-1556.
--
www.thestar.com/travel/northamerica/article/1066447--winnipeg-rises
Winnipeg Rises
Karen Burshtein Special to the Star
WINNIPEG—I was at a park with a friend and her baby the other day. I watched as the new walker took a few hesitant steps toward a shiny toy, her face a mixture of pride at her independence and a little trepidation at the unknown.
I perceived something similar in the faces of Winnipeggers last week as they took first steps en masse along Portage Ave. before an exhibition NHL hockey match: a little fear — and a little excitement. You see, Winnipeggers haven’t done downtown for a long time.
Even when the ice finally lets go of the pavement, and you can walk the wide expanse of Portage Ave. as God and urban planners intended, downtown Winnipeg has been mostly a ghost town, especially at night. There’s been nowhere to go, a point Air Canada seems to have made with its recent decision to have airline workers stay over at a hotel near the airport rather than sleep downtown. City officials have understandably reacted with outrage.
Downtown certainly has come a long way. But there was a time when it was THE place to be.
In the ’60s and ’70s, my grandmother dressed up when she went downtown. Everyone did. The stretch along Portage Ave. between Eaton’s and The Bay was brimming with city verve. Then Winnipeg became a victim of the doughnut effect, as urban scholars call the exodus of city dwellers to the suburbs.
Today, Winnipeggers, finally hip to the idea that a city can’t be a city without a centre, are watching as downtown enters what can only be called a new era. The most obvious impetus was, well, we all know because Winnipeggers have been shouting it loud enough: The return of the Jets.
The effect of the Winnipeg Jets’ departure in 1995 on the collective psyche cannot be overstated.
To the myths of Winnipeg as a place of irrepressible creativity and biblical mosquitos was added the subtext of hockey losers. For years, the city has been chanting for its return. All of a sudden it happened.
Then things started moving fast. Projects once debated, and left to fester, were officially announced one after another.
A happy consequence or a happy coincidence?
Stefano Grande, executive director of Downtown Winnipeg Biz, a public/private downtown development venture thinks it’s the latter.
“Many projects had been in the pipeline before the Jets were being announced, including a new entertainment district,” he said. “What the arrival of the Jets does is coincidentally legitimize these plans.”
The MTS Centre, opened in 2004 where Eaton’s once was. Home to the AHL’s Manitoba Moose, it has also been one of the most successful concert venues in North America. The new environmentally innovative Manitoba Hydro Building on Portage Ave. building has started bringing back office workers to the heart of downtown.
To the east, boarding the historic Exchange District, a waterfront condo development is bringing empty nesters downtown. A new apartment complex on Portage Ave. is also in the works.
The Forks, with its fabulous, revamped Children’s museum and world-class SkatePark, is another example of downtown Winnipeg’s sudden growth spurt. The elegant Provencher Bridge and the Canadian Museum For Human Rights slated to open in 2012, are vying to become city icons, usurping the Golden Boy that sits atop the Manitoba Legislative Building.
But the ball really began rolling after the Jets returned. The Metropolitan Theatre, a long boarded up heritage building, purchased in 2006 by a Winnipeg businessman, was given a $1.5 million grant by the city to transform it into an entertainment venue. The city coughed up the money with the stipulation the project be completed fast; 2013 is the projected date.
A chic Alt Hotel from the Quebec-based Germain Group was announced (though not opening till Sept 2013), its location incorporating the old Mitchell Coop building on Portage Ave. It’s across from the MTS Centre.
Still, the hotel group’s director of development, Hugo Germain, says, “Winnipeg was on our radar screen already.”
The arrival of the Jets is “nice gravy but we’d been visiting the past three years.”
Education and culture
Farther down Portage Ave., another chapter of the revitalization of downtown is taking place, a direct result of the University of Winnipeg’s downtown campus expansion. The school’s growth offensive has spawned the new Buhler Centre for Faculty of Business and Economics at the corner of Portage Ave. and Colony St. and the Richardson College for the Environment and Science Complex.
Within the striking Buhler building is the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, home to many of the artists who make up Winnipeg’s vibrant art scene. The building is next to the modernist Winnipeg Art Gallery; together they form a mini art hub on Portage Ave.
At this end of Portage Ave., cool places to eat and hang are also opening. Stella’s Cafe and Bakery, a favourite city breakfast and brunch place recently opened a location on the main level of the Buhler Centre.
Most exciting is Pop Soda Coffeehouse and Gallery at Portage Ave. and Furby St., which opened in September. The 7,000 sq-ft. cafe/restaurant also bills itself as an informal cultural community area offering studio spaces or just walls to paint on. Hipsters and students lie in hammocks or sit on retro couches reading or listening to Jazz. Owner Christine Boss took over a storefront that had been abandoned for 30 years.
“We thought they needed us down here,” she says. “I definitely see a lot of little business revitalizing the area.”
Karen Burshtein is a freelance writer based in xxx. Subsidy
JUST THE FACTS
SLEEPING Ft. Garry Hotel. An atmospheric former railway hotel on Broadway, a few blocks from Portage Ave. The hotel also has an ultra modern spa. www.fortgarryhotel.com. 222 Broadway. (204) 942-8251. Fairmont. The outpost of the luxury Fairmont brand is situated at the corner of Portage and Main. www.fairmont.com/Winnipeg. 2 Lombard Ave. (204) 957-1350. The Delta is behind the MTS Centre and adjacent to the Convention Centre. www.deltahotels.com. 350 St. Mary Ave. (204) 942-0551. An Alt Hotel is scheduled to open in 2013.
DINING Pop Soda's Coffeehouse & Gallery. New hot spot near happening University of Winnipeg offering Mediterranean-inspired fare and live music. 625 Portage Ave. (204) 415-7666. Salisbury House on the Provencher Bridge. The best branch of Winnipeg's iconic hamburger joint incorporated right into the Provencher Bridge which links the Forks to French speaking St. Boniface. Edohei. Sushi master Sadao Ono trained many of Winnipeg's sushi chefs. Now his son, 2006 Golden Plates Canadian Culinary Championship winner Makoto Ono, joins his father at his downtown restaurant. www.edohei.mb.ca. 55 Ellice Ave. (204) 943-0427. Peasant Cookery offers innovative upmarket takes on an international array of comfort food in a bistro setting in the Exchange District. www.peasantcookery.com. 283 Bannatyne Ave.
(204) 989-7700. East India Company is one f the city's best Indian buffets. www. eastindiaco.com. 349 York Ave. (204) 947-3097.
Lobby on York is a great cocktail bar and upscale fine dining choice for before or after a Jets game. www.lobbyonyork.com. 295 York Ave. (204) 896-7275. Dubrovnik is a 30 year old fixture in Winnipeg's fine dining scene is in an old mansion near the Assiniboine River on the southern edge of downtown. www. restaurantdubrovnik.com. 390 Assiniboine Ave. (204) 944-0594.
Stella's Cafe at Plug IN Stella's Bakery is consistently voted Winnipeg's best breakfast place. This outpost is open day and evening with a dinner menu that includes curries and chilies as well as their excellent soups and sandwiches. 460 Portage. (204) 772-1556.