Apartment and New Keg Restaurant Back on For Downtown

In 2023, a 14 storey apartment town and new Keg restaurant halted construction as economic supply chain issues and inflation raised its $40 million price up beyond $60 million. The developer was local Keg owner Gord Howard who still owns the three restaurants in the city. The apartment at Donald Street and St. Mary's Avenue was 30 per cent complete when it went into creditor protection.

It is now back on under Carrington Real Estate and called DSM (short for the street crossroads). A Winnipeg developer that is new to the downtown but with projects all over the city. The design has been reconfigured for 160 units including 40 affordable ones. The developer is hoping to access the accelerator program from the Fed in the next intake. That fund was over subscribed all over the country from developers keen to build housing. There likely be a 2025 intake but there is no guarantee that a new government will renew the program.

Parts of south Portage have been surface parking lots for decades. This is what Toronto looked like in the 1980s. Massive parking lots surrounded the bank towers of the major Canadian banks. It is pretty much been in the last 20 years that condos went up on all available space they could find. And those banks looks small compared to them. However, for all the towers in Toronto, affordability has not come.

I have said a few times here that the affordable housing for today is usually built 20 years earlier. Shortages of housing raises what those houses can go for. Cutting immigration and student visas can send those housing prices down. But it can also send Canada into recession as the universities topple on the edge and employers can't find critical workers. 

The very long period of almost know multi-unit housing going up and the slow pace of detached homes going up. Winnipeg went for quite some time with nearly no apartments going up or at such a slow pace that it is reflected in soaring house prices. Supply chain problems continue to slow down today's construction. Higher interest have had an effect but keep in mind that low interest rates didn't help on prices or supply either.

Building capacity in the system is something all three levels of government, private industry and consumers need to work on. Oddly enough, the federal and provincial governments have sat on the sidelines about building for years. And consumers often want the door shut on further building in their area once they have moved in. This eventually becomes a problem because people require different types through the course of their lives. Also, housing often needs to be rehabilitated or rebuilt. In Winnipeg, the housing stock is rapidly aging. In some cases, houses get knocked down and what is left is an empty space.

This is the story of a lot of downtown Winnipeg. Houses, offices, warehouse, hotels and other buildings have been knocked down and turned to surface parking. The corner of Donald and St. Mary's Avenue has been a parking lot for decades. It is kitty korner to Cityplace and walking distance to Canada Life Centre. It is without a doubt going to be very attractive as a destination for Jets, Moose and concert goers with a Keg there.

Once upon a time there were two Kegs downtown. There was a large location where Pony Coral was and the longtime location on Garry Street. The latter location remains and it uncertain it stays open although no one has said anything to the effect that it will close. It probably has enough of a base to continue forever. That being side, the new Keg on the ground floor of the Donald/St. Mary's location will be 10,000 square feet. To put that in perspective the Keg location on Portage Avenue is 8,000 square feet. The one of McGillivray is 12,000 square feet.

This will be the second steakhouse locate on the first floor of a downtown apartment of office in recent years. The first was Hy's when it moved to the first floor and basement of the Richardson building in 2005. It has taken quite some time for Hy's to be joined by 529 across the street in 2024. And now sometime in  2025 The Keg will up.

The new building will be called DSM which stands for Donald St. Mary's. It is a good news story for more housing on a surface parking lot and the return of a large Keg to the downtown area.