Bank of Montreal Portage and Main - The Future

The Bank of Montreal main branch closes soon. It is unlikely to branch will be torn down immediately for a parking lot. However, it is also unlikely that the Bank will pay taxes year after year on a building they don't own.

It is very likely the city or some non-profit will get it.

But what do they get? They get a bank set on an island with a decaying Concourse below it. Even above it has decrepit stairs and non-functioning elevators for wheelchairs.

The city voted no on opening the corner. But seemed to promise to fix the Concourse. That doesn't seem to be happening.

So the Bank of Montreal will close and will likely have to be boarded up and have 24 hour security lest squatters move in and begin removing everything they can. And before the city can pull its head out, we can see it burn down.

At that time we can get the surface lot we all want at Portage and Main.

Main Street 1920s and 1930s and Goodbye to Bank of Montreal

There wasn't much colour in cars. They were pretty much all black in 1920s. The wide roads made Winnipeg tailor-made for cars. Although that same argument cold be made for mass transit. As clearly shown, streetcars ride up and down very wide Main Street just fine.

This picture taken at the corner of Portage and Main shows angle parking along the street. One street in the downtown has brought back reverse angle back in parking.

Despite the wide roads, it is hard to find parking along Main Street now. Rush hours means clearing all the streets for diamond lanes

Banker's Row doesn't exist anymore. Some buildings have been re-purposed. Other's denied other uses like the Canadian Bank of Commerce when Cowboys from Calgary wanted to turn it into a nightclub. Saviours came to stop it and the building mostly stays locked save for the sometime event.

We have a lot of good people trying to save the past and sometimes it is worth it, especially when we see decades long surface parking lots where the owner cry when they are told they can't use them or have to pave them and put trees in. However, we also deny a true re-purposing that can bring a vitality to the street instead of demolition.

Show an old picture of Winnipeg and have people coo about the good old days. It can easy forget the bad old days of blood on the street from the Strike. Or the Depression which had the city taking over property after property for unpaid taxes. Two world wars took some of our best people. The Spanish Flu and Polio kicked our asses. The Red River Flood reminded us we live in a flood plain.

Still, Winnipeg has survived and grown. Sometimes our growth has been very slow but in recent years it has been steady. We don't lack for head offices but they are spread out like much of everything in the city. Population is spread out as well which increasingly stretches infrastructure and and services.

The Bank of Montreal has indicated they are abandoning their old building at Portage and Main. They have faithfully kept it running and beautiful all this time. However, all of the rest of the banks have moved to the towers on the corner or even further afield.

I don't think we have reply on Cowboys to come to rescue. Nor do we need saviours who will turn it into a locked museum with fewer events than a Bomber season. The building has been in place since 1913 and truly is the last of Banker's Row. But it is orphaned. It is surrounded by a wall, connected to a failing Concourse and damned hard to get to.

The hotel on Portage Avenue East is still planned for 2020 but that doesn't really help Bank of Montreal re-purpose itself. Meeting be called soon to do hear proposals.

I do have one proposal. Move Explore Manitoba and Manitoba Tourism's 8000 square feet of space into the bank building. The Forks space is valuable enough that it could be re-purposed to a restaurant or retail.

Still...orphaned building isolated on an island. Tourism probably doesn't want to move from high profile Forks either. The city has stepped in in the past. The Bank of Hamilton building down the street is an example. But it has more true office space. The Bank of Montreal building is more of a cathedral.

The sad thing is that while people will say it is a beautiful building they are likely to veto any private or public use for it.

Portage and Main 1970s

In 1976 just ahead of the demolitions that lead to the building of the Trizec building across the street (You can see Wilson's Furniture peaking out), parking on Portage Avenue East beside the Bank of Montreal and Richardson building was permitted.

You can see parking meters across the street and a bus stop by the Bank of Montreal building.

Parking your muscle car right by the Richardson building just like Steve McQueen was possible.

Winnipeg has grown quite a bit but we will be seeing a significant amount of building on or near the intersection including the tallest building in the city this year and next. How people move about on this intersection and throughout the downtown needs to be examined.

Banks Show Some Love to Winnipeg

TD, Canwest and now RBC Building

RBC has really decided to make sure they have good name recognition in the province. In one short month, they have announced that they are putting their logo on two prominent Winnipeg buildings, the Winnipeg Convention Centre and 201 Portage Avenue, formerly the TD building, formerly Canwest Global, formerly Canwest building.The Royal Bank lion will now grace to major buildings in own for years to come.

RBC leased the top floors of 201 Portage for their securities division which was the impetus for the name going up . In recent months, the bank has also donated money for research on Lake Manitoba.

RBC has also been positioning more senior people here to capture some of the corporate business springing up. It is no accident that they want more recognition in the province for their work. People have not forgotten the steady stream of execs from all the banks that streamed west. Nor have they forgotten the steady refusal of investment money after that from those western purse-string holders.

The 1990s were rough years for Winnipeg and the province. The banks gave up, closed down and didn't believe the economy was worth it. The credit unions stepped up.

Not to be outdown by RBC, BMO has positioned a senior vice president here as well.

CIBC runs the only capital markets office in Winnipeg.

Winnipeg's Wellington West is now part of National Bank and Manulife.

Scotiabank has sponsored the stage at Festival Park in the The Forks for years.

The true test of the bank though is not just logos and sponsorships although these do help. It will be increasing the presence of senior bank staff and access to capital.

There is a reason why the credit unions boomed the last several years. It was the neglect of the banks. It is unlikely the banks will cause the credit unions to retreat. However, when it comes to getting corporate deals, securities trading and boutique financial services, the banks have more expertise.

There is one thing to note here. TD bank used to have a logo up on 201 Portage Avenue. They still occupy the building but RBC now has the higher floors, the logo on the building and more presence.

If there is a bank that needs to step up their game in the city, it might be TD.

Come on banks. Show some more love.

Tuxedo Park Shopping Centre Part 1

The picture is the Agricultural College in 1903. Now the Asper Jewish Community Campus of Winnipeg.

The Tuxedo Park Shopping Centre was built in 1962 to serve the town of Tuxedo. It initially had a Safeway, a Bank of Montreal branch, the headquarters of the Tuxedo Police and a hotel.

The land used to belong to the Hudson Bay Company but was granted to Lord Selkirk in 1811. By 1857, it had been surveyed into farmland from the Assiniboine River out to 2 and later 4 miles. The region was known as Assiniboia and by 1880 it became the Rural Municipality of Assiniboia.

One of the first buildings to be built in the area was the The Agricultural College in 1906 along Tuxedo Avenue. It was deemed to be too small and 1911-1913, the college moved to Fort Garry, home to the present University of Manitoba.

From 1914 until 1917 this site was used by the Manitoba School for the Deaf, the first such institution in Western Canada. In 1917, the facility became necessary for wounded men from World War I. The building served as a hospital until 1919. Thereafter, the Canadian Army took over the building and from 1919 to 1968, it was the Fort Osborne Barracks. The Asper Jewish Community Campus of Winnipeg bought the site in 1997 and it is used as an educational and cultural center.

In 1904, 283 acres of the land along the river was bought by the City of Winnipeg for the site of Assiniboine Park.

From 1905 to 1913, Frederick W. Heubach and various investor acquired land for their new Tuxedo Park development. In 1913, the Town of Tuxedo was incorporated and Heuback became its first mayor.

The American firm Olmsted Brothers designed the town and that plan was followed assiduously for many decades.

A British firm held a small piece of the new town. It was a small triangle of land bounded by Tuxedo Avenue, Roblin Boulevard (later Corydon Avenue) and Edgeland Boulevard which was zoned for three apartment blocks and a shopping center.

That shopping center became what is the present Tuxedo Park Shopping Centre.

(to be continued)