Manitoba Metis Federation Buys Two More Towers in Winnipeg

The Manitoba Metis Federation continues to put together quite the portfolio of real estate holdings in Winnipeg. The investments are very much a consolidation of space already being used by the MMF for their staff. The two towers with BellMTS logos on them will see MMF staff starting to move in right away. The towers beside the former Bank of Montreal building at Portage and Main which is being turned in a heritage centre are at 333 Main Street and 191 Pioneer Avenue. Bell is no longer supporting a large head office staff. Occupancy at 333 Main in recent year has dropped to about 68% vacancy. The towers were listed in recent years for sale by Artis in Winnipeg for about $33.5 million but the price of the sale this year has not been disclosed. As office workers start to move in, occupancy will rise so that the vacancy rate will be 32%. The MMF indicates that 160 workers will be moving in the taller of the two towers. A parking lot was part of the purchase.

Just down the street the MMF has offices in the the former Wawanesa tower at Broadway and Main as well as other offices in the former sport federation building. Wawanesa consolidated their five offices in a tower at True North Square. MMF has around 300 employees working out of the building at 200 Main Street. That office building also comes with both an underground as well as surface parking lot.

The MMF has other offices they have been using but as their leader David Chatrand explained, they have upgrades needed that need to be done. It is likely the move to to new BellMTS towers will be an upgrade on quality compared to some of the older buildings out there. As if to demonstrated the disrepair of downtown buildings, it was reported that the Canada Building is closed after flooding affecting Manitoba government offices.

The MMF is its own level of government as a Red River Metis, the leadership has chosen downtown Winnipeg as where their cultural, political and economic centre is. It is hard to peg how many employees they have altogether but at least 500 now will work along Main in the 24 floor 333 Main Street, the 13 floor 191 Pioneer Avenue and the 7 floor 400 Main Street location. The MMF have a total of 11 buildings downtown including 280 Fort Street, the former Carlton Club and Yoga Public location.

The 280 Fort Street is planned as a 36 room boutique hotel. There will be many watching that with interest to see how well it goes. The $154 million in land claim money awarded in 2018 has helped spur these investments and some such as RV park near St. Laurent are starting to turn a profit. A tree nursery is also a business owed by the Metis.  The total value of buildings and parking lots bought total around $122 million.

The MMF has signed a $500 million agreement for housing and has recently built 20 units of transitional housing at old Bell Hotel location for $4.3 million. Elsewhere in the province they are building houses and retirement residences. It is likely we will see more housing as there is a limit to how much commercial buildings the Metis want to be exposed to. 

The next 20 years the critical area for development in housing and the Metis will likely be critical in building that housing. Of course much of this will be for the Metis community but like their commercial buildings, it will likely have tenants across the spectrum. The business success for Metis will continue to come from from the diversity of their businesses that serve all Canadians. Listening to David Chartrand, he seems to take Winnipeg's overall health as critical to the success of Metis health. He isn't wrong. Partnership is the way to go for prosperity and long term healthy success.

The hotel that is proposed for 280 Fort Street could be a new business area for the Metis. First Nations across Manitoba are having success in hotels and tourism. We could see more of these hotels in Winnipeg and other provincial towns and cities. Real estate has always been one area where enormous wealth can be derived but there is risk in the business. It will be interested to see how the Metis handle their portfolio.