30 Years Ago Today

[Deleted]

Portage Place Mall opened in Downtown Winnipeg. Built for $80 million at the time ($151.4 million in 2017), Portage Place is known as perhaps the biggest White Elephant ever built in the Downtown area. Within one year, there were indications the mall had not met expectations, and by the 90s, it was clear that Portage Place was a flop. Most of the high end stores, the IMAX, and the Movie Theatres closed down. Today, it's main tenants are Government agencies, dollar stores, low-end clothing, and offices on the third floor. However, in 1987, people had big plans for the new mall.

[phillymike]

Sept 17, 2017 6:43:20 GMT -6 @hannujarvenpaa said:

Portage Place Mall opened in Downtown Winnipeg. Built for $80 million at the time ($151.4 million in 2017), Portage Place is known as perhaps the biggest White Elephant ever built in the Downtown area. Within one year, there were indications the mall had not met expectations, and by the 90s, it was clear that Portage Place was a flop. Most of the high end stores, the IMAX, and the Movie Theatres closed down. Today, it's main tenants are Government agencies, dollar stores, low-end clothing, and offices on the third floor. However, in 1987, people had big plans for the new mall.

It was worth a shot at the time. Downtown was a bit busier back then, so it wasn't as big of a gamble as it is now in hindsight.

[Lions67]

TEAR IT DOWN!!

[Deleted]

$150 million in today's money is a big gamble. I do not remember what was covering the blocks before Portage Place was built but the mall made some bad decisions. If you walk along Portage Avenue, you will notice even though it's closed off except for the main entrances, the stores have an appearance of being accessible from the outside. This was the original plan. If they had made it so that most stores could be accessed from Portage Avenue, it would have made a huge difference, and created more traffic especially in the warmer months.

The mall should have built the apartment/condos on the east and west pads of the mall, like they had originally intended to do. This would have given more people a reason to move downtown, and shop there. The walkways should have never been flooded with stores initially, or at least been able to close early, considering that Eatons and the Bay closed early many weeknights. Many of the retailers who rented space along the walkways went under by the first or second year of opening.

Perhaps building a Walmart or Zellers to the east side of the mall (where the old WFP building was), would have encouraged more downtown residents to shop there, and in turn, brought in the need for the two residential towers to be built. There is absolutely no grocery stores in the area, which is terrible inconvenient for most residents, who happen to be working class/poor.

Finally, I never understood why they were trying to add a third mall to downtown when Eaton Place and Winnipeg Square were never doing that great to begin with. Why have three malls in such a short distance. There just were not enough people living downtown.

[Guardian]

Future home of the Winnipeg Jets when Bell MTS Place needs to be replaced?

[TheDeuce]

Wouldn't an arena look great on that site? Better yet, an arena in 1994 on that site?




m.

[bcmike]

Sept 17, 2017 13:17:09 GMT -6 @hannujarvenpaa said:

$150 million in today's money is a big gamble. I do not remember what was covering the blocks before Portage Place was built but the mall made some bad decisions. If you walk along Portage Avenue, you will notice even though it's closed off except for the main entrances, the stores have an appearance of being accessible from the outside. This was the original plan. If they had made it so that most stores could be accessed from Portage Avenue, it would have made a huge difference, and created more traffic especially in the warmer months.

The mall should have built the apartment/condos on the east and west pads of the mall, like they had originally intended to do. This would have given more people a reason to move downtown, and shop there. The walkways should have never been flooded with stores initially, or at least been able to close early, considering that Eatons and the Bay closed early many weeknights. Many of the retailers who rented space along the walkways went under by the first or second year of opening.

Perhaps building a Walmart or Zellers to the east side of the mall (where the old WFP building was), would have encouraged more downtown residents to shop there, and in turn, brought in the need for the two residential towers to be built. There is absolutely no grocery stores in the area, which is terrible inconvenient for most residents, who happen to be working class/poor.

Finally, I never understood why they were trying to add a third mall to downtown when Eaton Place and Winnipeg Square were never doing that great to begin with. Why have three malls in such a short distance. There just were not enough people living downtown.

I lived downtown from 88 to 92. Portage place at that time was more of a going concern, but even then you could see the problems. However you're right there were issues that made living downtown not the easiest and lack of a major grocery store was one of them. I think the idea behind Portage Place was good, in that it was a gamble to to revitalize a downtown core that was in severe decline however the execution failed as it failed to draw people from the suburbs downtown to live and shop. Can you imagine if the Arena had been built downtown at that time, it may have been a different story.