Pony Corral to Close at Grant Park

Pony Corral Grant Park has had a long run of 28 years but the restaurant that took over the spot of the former Bombay Bicycle Club in 1997 could not get improvements on their leased property to continued on. The classic cars shows that ran on the property will move to their owned and operated location on Nairn. They also have their location on Pembina Highway.

For restaurant starved people of River Heights and Fort Rouge and for those wishing for a bite before or after a movie, for those wanting live music or to enjoy the classic cars on Sunday Cruise Nights, the Pony was the place to go. The Ginakes family have always staked a huge contributing effort into wrestling, classic cars and live music and it has been bestowed a love that comes from people gathering, eating and enjoying each other's company.

When the Pony Coral first moved into the corner restaurant, it shared the lot with Zellers. Then Walmart. Then Zellers again. Then Target. Then Goodlife Fitness and Canadian Tire. It seemed the only consistent thing was the Pony Coral. The Grant Park Mall has gone through a lot of changes.

The last time there was a major renovation of the restaurant was under the Bombay Bicycle Club in 1984 when they added space and re-did the interior and exterior. Before that it was Barnacle Pete's, a seafood restaurant. Even back then, the restaurant needed plumbing and sewer work and apparently still does. Today, it is need of roof repairs.

From 2000 to 2020, Pony Corral operated a restaurant downtown at 444 St. Marys Avenue in a former Keg location. The intention was to build on Donald Street but Covid put a damper on that. Oddly enough, it is The Keg that is building a Donald Street location.

There will be many people sad to see Pony Corral leave the Grant Park area. There will certainly be concern about how Sunday Cruise Night will be affected. Portage Avenue has been the site of cars cruising and while Grant Park is not super closer, it is closer than Pembina or Nairn locations. However, given the issues of cruising on Portage in recent years, perhaps a change will be good.

The restaurant business has always been a tough one but there have been a lot of closings so far. Rent is too high in some cases, restaurants are downsizing and patrons are not going out as late as they did pre-Covid. Even big national chains are still not back to full lunch service as were five years ago.

It is hard to imagine a restaurant that served so much of the community in a variety of ways besides besides serving food. They will be missed for sure. And it will be curious what comes next. It could be that only a national group like Earls or Joeys can afford that corner.

25 Station Street - Jubilee Station Apartment

The shovels in the ground are finally happening and the politician invitees were there to do the honours. The southwest transit corridor took some time to build and opened during the pandemic in 2020. It has seen a number of apartment units go up along especially where the former Fort Rouge Yards CN rail site was. This was the goal all along to create density along a former industrial area from the core to the University of Manitoba. It all started back with phase 1 for the blue line. Like all projects in the city, it took 12 years to complete. This is simply too long and if the Transcona phase takes this long, it will be some time in the 2030s when it gets done. Other routes will likely not get done or even started for decades.

A revolution in travel is not likely to have much patience with Winnipeg's timetable. Regardless of what the city plans, they will have to contend with aging infrastructure and construction inflation. Building six lanes of freeways all over the city in not practical or affordable. We have seen many neighbourhoods reject them. Meanwhile bridges like the Arlington Bridge are closed with no solution in place for its replacement or demolition.

In recent days, media has been focusing on the desperate need for housing across Canada and what has led to the shortages and meteoric rise in prices. Extremely low interest rates did nothing for curbing prices. If anything, it led to people buying larger houses, farther away and commuting everywhere. Neighbourhoods were set up to have only detached housing with no retail, commercial offices, duplexes, apartments or anything other than a house with garage facing out to the street. For some this is idyllic until they look to downsize and then they have no choice but to move out of the area they may have lived in for decades. It is possible some people dreamed of moving to a warm retreat and some do. For many though, it might be that they haven't planned for anything other than the house they are in. And that can be a problem as people age.

The reconstruction of the underpass at Jubilee and road work on Pembina and along Jubilee has been painfully long. More than two years of slow work. Even as that was going on the southwest transit corridor was being phased in. By 2020, it was all starting to shape up but the pandemic meant a lot of the housing plans slowed down due to shut downs, supply chin issues, rising interest rates and and slow zoning approval added years to getting anything built.

The Jubilee Station has had open land ready to go for some time so this week, all the politicians came to shovels ceremony for a project by Carrington Real Estate. It is a 16 storey apartment with a 3 storey townhouse right across from the bus terminal. The apartment will have 156 units and the townhouse will have 10.  The federal accelerator program is assisting housing along corridors the city and the Feds wish to see have more housing. The three year program has $122 million to be used for this type of housing. Portage Avenue is also considered for this funding.

Winnipeg really didn't see a boom on Graham when they made it into Winnipeg Transit corridor. There was some nice commercial areas along it but no  support for housing by any level of government and zero interest from the private sector. It took the True North people a multi-year effort to have housing built both north and south of Portage. Only then came some assistance but there are still huge empty gaps of surface parking.

The new apartment building will be the tallest and most significant project in that area along the Fort Rouge CN rail line. It hasn't been without it's critics. Many of those living in the area complain there is too much traffic. They have a point but there have also people who complained that it is obstructed their clear view looking west. That isn't a legitimate complaint about what was industrial land.

It was the right move to build a transit corridor along the rail line. It took far too long and the dogleg through the Parker lands has taken ten years to sort out. The apartments that were planned for it were obstructed and it took a court to tell the city they were wrong. It appears things are back on track and if construction can happen this year, it will go a significant way to reducing the chronic shortage of housing in Winnipeg.

Tomorrow's affordable housing is what goes up now and every year from now. It is about 20 years that brings stable pricing. The country can't take huge breaks in building sustainability. Zoning issues that take ten years are a scourge all over the city. Bylaws on size of house, setbacks, how many parking spaces, how many stairwell often have nothing to do with safety or aesthetics except in the most not in my yard type of view. It can be tough seeing houses being torn down for tall, for or three floor houses. However, we are seeing more and more houses reach 100 years of age. Not all in great shape. Nor are they likely to be built exactly like what was there before.

The new apartments will cost about $1300+ which isn't exactly cheap but does include utilities and WiFi. Geo-Thermal heat and cooling is part of the design. This isn't an insignificant add on. And if the residents don't have a car or only make do with a car co-op, they could see substantial savings. A lot of renters could save a lot of money if they did not have to drive everywhere. But that would mean more work and places to live along safe and active transit routes.

The Station Street development by Carrington is one of a few projects they anticipate doing around stations over the next five years. We surely could use it. They have talked about speed in getting things done as did some of the politicians present. Think there is acknowledgement that development companies specializing in multi-unit places can't be sidelined for year after year. Many companies that built the apartments of Osborne or along Henderson Highway or Portage were cooling their heels for decades because the city seemed only interested in detached housing suburbs. Many of them had not a single multi-unit place even next to them. Contrast that with Seasons of Tuxedo or Bridgwater which have that type of housing built right along with the development.

In 2025 quite a lot of housing will come on stream and more in 2026. It can be difficult because a lot of people believe in housing until it is a suburb going up near them, or an apartment or someone's granny house out back. The city has to be sympathetic to design, traffic and infrastructure needs but when it can't even get anything built on empty land, it is simply a total failure of governance. Let's hope the Station Street apartments are the first of many built to help create capacity, make rent stop its meteoric rise and to create corridors of transportation that have the population to make them convenient and safe.

Grant Park Shopping Centre in 1969

The land where Grant Park Shopping Centre was near the end of the line for Winnipeg. The Grand Trunk Rail line (later CN) was built in 1908 and was bush country beyond River Heights and Fort Rouge. But it was also Rooster Town and it existed as a Metis community from 1920 to around 1961. It was housing not connected to water or roads and the people were vulnerable. It is difficult to say if any of the people lived or worked nearby thereafter.

In 1962 land was broken to create Grant Park Shopping Centre which was a series of detached stores along what would become Grant Avenue. The entire area was experience post World War II growth at an an accelerated rate. The mall itself opened in 1964.

The stores were originally detached. Safeway, Dominion and Clarke's were some of the original stores. Woolco was added in 1966 and triggered a court case with Clarke's that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The decision went to Woolco and triggered even more work to enclose the mall so that stores were connected together like a true mall.

The above picture is from 1969 and Woolco has been there for three years but this year is the first that is attached to mall. The below picture is also from 1969 and shows the corridor with Pizza Place on the right. The new movie theatre is immediately right in the picture and the corridor to the left leads to the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission (simply called The Commission) and the Imperial Bank. The bank is still there as CIBC and MLCC is now in a different place called the Manitoba Liquor Mart.

Pizza Place lasted through many decades and might have lasted a lot more. The multi-year renovations and store closures of Woolco, Zellers and Target were brutal. Many retailers inside moved a number of times. A few of them failed as a result of so many changes.

Grant Park certainly has gone through a dizzying array of changes from the day is has been built. However, today's Red River Co-op, Canadian Tire and Goodlife additions may represent a time of stability for the mall.

In 1969 the movie theatre opened and the entrance to it was through the mall. It was Winnipeg's first Cinerama theatre with a curved screen. The theatre was a 742 seat hall and was one of the more comfortable places to see a movie in the city.

The first movie was a special effects wonder called Krakatoa and had Winnipggers coming to check out for weeks for both the movie and the theatre.

By 1969 there were many towers surrounding the mall and across the street. South River Heights had filled in. And Woolco was the perfect suburban store with its candy section and Red Grille restaurant.

And in 1969 when the whole mall became enclosed, there was steady traffic down the corridor past the Pizza Place to Woolco.

The parking lot outside Grant Park would be largely just parking till the 1970s when McDonald's among came to town. Today there are restaurants the entire roadside.

The movie theatre became a multiplex in 1989 and has since been re-configured a few times and is now Landmark which could be one of the poshest movie houses in town except for VIP service.

As of the end of 2019 with Red River Co-op grocery store renovations ending, Grant Park is probably going to have some stability after years of renovations. Pizza Place which became Autumnbee's Pizza for a short time remains empty. It remains to be seen if anyone is willing to take a chance on it as a restaurant again.

Grant Park has evolved with suburbia and still remains popular with young and old.

The Parker Avenue Mess Up

Bulk of Parker Avenue Needed for Water and Bus

How did it happen?

Some time ago, I suggested resistance by people along Parker to any change was not likely garner much sympathy. Declarations that the area was a park and then shielding access to the area by blocking roads so that only those living in the area could enjoy the land wasn't in the cards.

The land in question was never designated park land. It has always been zoned industrial and some of the area was used to move high powered hydro lines.

The Fort Rouge Yards/Parker Land Swap was a mess up from start to finish. These over clever moves never properly assessed the value of the lands in question, the future needs of those lands or the environmental concerns. And now we have city officials coming cup in hand with expropriation needs for water retention and bus rapid transit.

What a screw-up.

The bulk of the land around Parker Avenue is now needed for water retention to protect from flooding immediately north in Fort Rouge.  The rest of it is needed for bus rapid transit. If there is any land left for townhouses as was first suggested by the Gem Equities land swap, you've got me. Given the slow or non-development approach of Gem, it is possible we might all be in the old age homes before we ever saw houses in the Parker area.

In any event, the city has to use expropriation for land that just a few short years ago that it could have done this work of water retention and transit for nothing. Is the crazy or what?

Once again Parker Avenue people are not likely to be happy. Many of them will still want nothing to do with the city plans but the bugger my neighbours to the north and their flooding issues is not kosher. Likewise the BRT plans and expropriations everywhere is probably going to make for many sour faces.

A place to hold water

It is difficult to know why we get into these messes. It undermines the faith people have that projects can proceed the make sense logically, are researched, presented for discussion, modified and then carried out. There will always be some resistance but sometimes people buy in afterwards as in the case of Safeway in Osborne Village. There were many that wanted no change in configuration of the store but now there is wide acknowledgement that the vitality of that grocery store has been essential to the success of the residents living in that community.

A ferocious response can be expected when this move hits the council floor this week. I don't blame anyone for throwing their hands up in the air.

For the moment my support lies for those in the Fort Rouge area who may be getting flooded basements over water storage. They have every right as anyone in the city to protection of their properties. To that end, I support water retention if indeed the environmental assessments declare a need.

For the people of Parker Avenue, there is still a possibility of land to enjoy if pathways and the like come as part of the project.

As for the BRT expropriation, I still don't know enough about it to get a handle on it. Every time I think I am close to figuring it out, it seems I know nothing.

Everyone take a deep breath. It is going to be a long week.

1580 Taylor Avenue - New Spa

The piece of land on Taylor Avenue in question.

The City Centre Community Committee discusses this week the plan for a new spa on one of the last pieces of land along Taylor for development.

Nothing against the spa or developer that is making plans for the site. However, if the idea of ever putting a north-south corridor for active transportation along the Burlington Northern line is to be a success, it will have to have an exit in south River Heights.

The old CN Oakpoint line already has condos going up on it so that can't be used but there is enough land alongside BNSF's line to run from Wellington Crescent all the way to Taylor Avenue where it could connect with a bike path all the way to Fort Rouge.







The top photo shows the Burlington Northern office and rail line that runs north into River Heights.

The middle photo shows the land up for development.

The bottom map shows the area of south River Heights being developed.

There are so many times we hear about conflicts between drivers and bikes. Is it possible to ensure that there is a right of way path along the rail line for bikes or footpath in the future?

The development can proceed but think of the future for once, please.