Stella's Coming to Courts of St. James

 

Courts of St. James towers began in the planning phases 56 years ago in 1965. Construction took place in the years that followed with a real push from 1967 to 1970 when all three towers, recreation facilities and mall were completed. In the beginning it had a Dominion store anchoring the mall along with a bank and restaurants.

Construction costs back then were $12 million and Lakeview and Confederation Life were the builders. The entire 9.5 acre site was a success right of the gates and Lakeview went on to repeat the mixed developed format downtown with Lakeview's Holiday Towers and hotel attaches to the Winnipeg Convention Centre.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s a lot was happening all over in St. James. It seemed down every street was new housing and developments. But for years it also seemed like the bald prairie with trees taking years to mature. Still, you hear fond memories for those that grew up in the area and today, you see block and after block being spruced up.

The green belt that follows Sturgeon Creeks was a lifesaver for many in the time of the pandemic. With Portage Avenue looking more empty that usual, it was easy to see how barren as well as how old some store fronts were. There are renovations going on up and down the street and leasing signs popping up.

Some of the activity is driven by cannabis retailers and having a retail strip that looks like nothing has been done since the 1960s or 70s won't do. Many empty storefronts the last number of years have meant no one was interested with either the price, the look or the size.

The level of apartment building in Winnipeg has triggered older developments to put through long awaited upgrades. Courts of St. James is no different. As the pandemic dragged on, many businesses saw it as a time to get ahead of the curve. In recent weeks, the retail side of the mixed development was re-done and with a fresh paved lot. Some businesses have returned. But others are gone for good.

Legends Bar and Grill in the back of the development continues to operate. 

As does Dollarama.

However, the loss of Sal's meant there was room for something new.

It looks like the Courts of St. James has found it in Stella's. It is probably as much needed for Stella's as it is for the mall. The long time restaurant was hurt from labour relations and resulted in a union which the company had no response to other that shutting locations down. Sherbrook and Osborne Village shut among others. Still, locations such as Pembina, Provencher and Portage near Art Galleryn have proven to be lucrative.

The above spot Stella's has chosen is where the old Bank of Montreal was at Courts of St. James. This is deliberate presumably as the wide sidewalks lend themselves to patios. The old sidewalks were too narrow for that. It is why nearly all the former tenants were service companies like denture clinics and law offices.

Stella's won't be the only restaurant addition. Red Swan Pizza has also leased a space which should be welcome to the people who live in St. James.

There are only a few spots left to lease but with high traffic volumes with restaurants roaring back from the pandemic and three sixteen floors towers behind the mall, it is hard to imagine them staying empty for long.

Meanwhile, the view across the street to Woodhave Park and the now red T-33 training aircraft representing the former Red Knights is an attractive scene.

The Hy's Patio at Portage and Main

Hy's Steakhouse is like a lot of restaurants that have had to shut down multiple times. In their case, the loss of the office crowd the last 18 months amplified the pain.  Many places have had to come up with other ways to reach their customers.

For the last several months the Richardson Family has upgraded everything around their buildings. With so many office towers going up or being upgraded, it would not do for Winnipeg's iconic Richardson Building not to get an upgrade. Public art, trees, lighting and paved areas with garden and greenery have really helped.

Hy's first came to Winnipeg and stood on Kennedy Street from 1958 to 2005. It was known as Hy's Steak  Loft back then. The original was Hy's in Calgary in 1955.  It went on to spread to locations across Canada.

The move to the Richardson Building was accompanied by a name change to Hy's Steakhouse and Cocktail Bar. The same rich textures and colour of the old Kennedy building remained as well as the continued success.

However, as mentioned, Covid 19 has reduced or closed restaurants over the last 18 months. Even now, it will be a slow return to offices and schools. As such many long time restaurants and hotels and open patios which they might not have done had they not had to think innovatively. The Fort Garry Hotel put up a lovely patio and Times Change(d) and Modern Lunch took over last year's Beer Can to set up the Blue Note Park. Beer Can moved to the Granite Club.

Hy's Steakhouse has opened a patio that looks out to Portage and Main. It is hard to imagine that they would ever think of going back to not having one. It certainly looks like it belongs.

As more festivals, concerts and other activities begin all over town, the restaurants that put up a patio will have a new customer stream that wishes to enjoy the outdoors.

The inward looking of some hotels and restaurants over the last decades may have turned a corner during the pandemic. Hope they keep the outdoor aspect in the decades to come.

The Blue Note Park Cafe and the Fortune Block.

The Beer Can has moved to the Granite Club. Long live Blue Note Park Cafe. With Times Changed and Modern Lunch working in tandem on the old Blue Note site, food and entertainment return to a patio for the summer. This is a good thing.

The site had been originally the Main Spot Diner but in 1983 just as I was finishing high school, it became the Blue Note Cafe and everything changed. It was the beginning of late night places open till 4 AM and there were a few of them. Prior to this, you were restricted in your choices primarily to Sal's. And Sal's didn't play music. Just the long, hard cold stare of the staff at fraternity boys with ravenous hunger of 2:00 AM.

There are probably more seats in Blue Note Park than there ever was at the Cafe which has 65 seats with it being packed double that in a building that was uneven, unsafe and unbelievable. The house band was the Crash Test Dummies who would also be serving your drinks. On any given day you might run into locally famous musicians but also David Bowie's band, Rod Stewart's band, Burton Cummings jamming all night, Slash singing, NHL players from every team including Mark Messier singing and on and on it went. Neil Young took the stage and in a legendary performance introduced himself as The Squires. That was in 1987 and led to Neil Young and The Blue Note's album.

Alas, it was only 10 years in that location (even expanding to the barbershop next door could not save it). The building was in just awful shape. The Blue Note moved to Portage Avenue near Arlington for five years after but it was the end of an era. Live music places were closing all over the city. Moreover, Winnipeg was in a bruising recession.

The sweet memories of the place lived on and music continued to play a few doors down at the High and Lonesome club, a place with 85 seats in 1992. As for the Blue Note building, it received enough repairs to continue on as the Fat Angel for years until it too faced the wreckage ball. And then it was a gravel lot that owners wanted to put a parking on.

By 2014, High and Lonesome club was facing its own Waterloo. Smashed into by a runaway car and a landlord determined to end the lease of the club to sell to developers who intended to bulldoze the entire block.

The Pollard Family of Pollard Banknote fame stepped in as angel investors and have slowly restored the whole block. Sadly, the pandemic has kept the entire area from taking its bows because everything has been closed or on restricted access and remain so now.

However, outdoor patios have a little more leeway because of the pandemic and are allowed more distanced people and that has allowed High and Lonesome Club and Modern Lunch to work together in the old Beer Can site to create Blue Note Park Cafe.

A menu is posted here and music is the order of the day for the patio. And if there is further opening check out Modern Lunch itself or High and Lonesome Club along with some of the other businesses nearby.

Be mindful of the construction on Main.

I parked along a side street myself.

Now that this block has been lovingly re-done I think we can expect great things. And who doesn't love a patio?

Interesting, I noticed U of W's radio station has an off campus address but I have no information on what is happening with it.

And next to CKUW is Livestock, an apparel company.

And Modern Electric Lunch has yet to live without the pandemic. It seems it will do well with the new  patio, residential population as well office and students in the fall.

It will be great to hear music again from this legendary block along Main Street in downtown Winnipeg.

Wheelchair Accessible in Winnipeg

Construction in Winnipeg has often meant inaccessible for those with any type of wheel assistance. These platforms have been all all over town this year, notably at every bus stop along Portage for re-surfacing. This one is outside the Bluenote Park Cafe. We often complain the about the City but in this case...well done.

The New Fort Garry Patio

The Fort Garry Hotel Sunset Terrace and Bar was opened on the new day before Canada Day. Tree planters create a little bit of space of the western side of the hotel and face out to Broadway. At 96 seats, it is the right size to create a bit of life on one of the most people friendly streets in town.

Like a lot of businesses, it is doing a slow roll out. Part of the is the restrictions in place as the province moves to double vaccinations. The other part is that many businesses are re-staffing and it requires patience to get teams back together, And in this case, it is a new business operation so first impressions are important.

In the next two weeks expect a seven day operation split between breakfast and afternoon/early evening shifts. There will not be festivals or concerts of any size till fall and most offices are no where near capacity. 

The convention, trade and festival season is going to boom when it is safe to do but the desire to be outside is not likely to go away. 

Given how many restaurants that have gone under, a re-thinking on pick-up windows, delivery and patios is inevitable. For hotels and convention centres, you wonder if they are not thinking about it as well. Several patios have opened lately in places that seemed unlikely. 

And this is a good thing.

Tuxedo

 Frederick Heuback Park was donated land from the first mayor of the Town of Tuxedo in 1964. It was dedicated in 1970 and part of Metro Winnipeg. In 1972, with the advent of Unicity, it was incorporated into the overall Parks and Recreation of the City of Winnipeg.

For a number of years the area of the park north of Grant Avenue had a soccer pitch on it. It was one of the fields used by Sir John Franklin Community club among others. The spot that became the soccer pitch at Renfrew and Grosvenor had a steam plant that was demolished as houses connected to natural gas in the 1960s in River Heights. 

The field had turf put over it but oil leaked up to the surface and probably was toxic. Kids were ordered not to play soccer on the pitch and played in early 1970s on soccer fields at Lipsett Hall and Frederick Heuback Park and Joe Malone Park. 

Park Boulevard residents were up in arms about the soccer pitch and it was removed in the 1970s. Any attempt to do anything with the land along Park Boulevard has been rejected over the years. Eventually pressure grew from Tuxedo residents about soccer pitches behind Lipsett Hall and they too were removed.

As apartments went up at Kenaston, there was growing pressure to remove Joe Malone Park as well. This faced  pushback on as Sir John's Franklin established the park and it was a regulation field as opposed to SJF. Eventually only access from Taylor was possible and the field continues to exist today.

Today Frederich Heuback Park is literally a green belt that is devoid of even basic park amenities for people.

You have to go a few blocks south to Assinboine Park or north to Edward Shindleman Park. There is a lake bordering West Taylor, Dumbarton and Kerslake. The lake space is not recreation space and lacks sidewalks or anything that would invite people to what is more or less a private kale. 

Large houses surrounding lakes are not neighbourhood recreation.

There are lakeside houses...or rather retention pond housing in various nice neighbourhoods.

The Edward Shindleman Park is one of the few places with an actual playground on it south of Grant. In the background you can see the fence where the CN line runs and the condos and apartments on the other side are Seasons and Seasons of Tuxedo.

Shindleman Park is a pleasant park at the southern most point of Tuxedo. It has some trails and a play structure and was fairly quiet on the day of this visit.

One of the things that is important in the future of cities is connectivity of places. For example, Shindleman Park is so close to thousands of people south of the rail tracks. You can see it from the pictures. But you have to go all the way around to get to it.

There are many parts of the city that don't even have sidewalks which defies logic on major roads where you can't exit the street to take safety from traffic if your car is in a collision or breaks down. 

Vital neighbourhoods are including more and more of what you need to be able to walk out the door and find recreation, groceries and services.

It would appear though that for people of Seasons, they will only be able to view a nice park from a distance with no easy access to it.

Serratus Movement Centre

In November of 2019, I moved from my long time place of employment and business at Goodlife Fitness Kenaston. A corporate decision in Ontario was made that there would be no more therapists in Canada as they wished to focus on core aspects of the fitness industry.

My clinic John Dobbin Massage Therapy has been successful at Goodlife. I was a bit worried but I also knew that Kenaston was supposed to close as well and that change was inevitable. Goodlife was planning three new locations and closing two old locations. After nearly 10 years, I wasn't sure how it was going to affect me.

My colleague and I tried to figure a place to go to. We had been working together for years in a single clinic room. She was an athletic therapist so had an office but sometimes you need a gym associated with your clinic. I just preferred to work in a gym after so many years. There were a number of offers and previously from a variety of clinics but I wanted to continue work with a fitness center.

My colleague Sue had previously worked with Serratus Movement Centre when they were on Corydon opposite Mona Lisa. In the subsequent years they had moved to Henlow Bay off  of Scurfield in a larger site and prospered in the niche areas of training, classes and youth programming. It turned out to be a perfect site as it was close to my old location and close to other clients working, living and at fitness centers elsewhere.

Serratus had clinic rooms in offices at the front of their building. It seemed a perfect fit. So in November of 2019, I moved to Serratus. Goodlife had me take everything that wasn't nailed down from massage chairs to filing cabinets. Although I moved November 1, I had to return every day for nearly three weeks to shred files older than a certain time. I was able to keep other files but there was a lot of sorting. Moreover, I was able to remove any remaining things at other Goodlifes. It was a lot of work while trying to get clients to move with me.

In addition to massage I work in entertainment so at the same time I was renting equipment and working events such as Commerce Social and various conferences, galas, etc. I had worked on a few movies as well. By December, I was finished with Kenaston and everything was moved and sorted as I was working at my location in Serratus while gearing up for a big 2020.

Little did we know 2020 and up to now in 2021 would be so awful. I was just gearing up for a big year when early January I was hit in the eye and a week or so later the sickest I've been with the flu. It laid me out for days and I had to go hospital where they worried about Covid. Keep in mind this was before there was even a case in North America. I did recover after a very long time but in February 2020, my parents seniors home was hit by a virus that made people violently sick. My mom and dad got it and in my assistance to them, I got it. Once again I was so sick. Sicker than my parents, in fact.

Meanwhile, business was slowing as Covid 19 fears grew. Still, as I recovered, I felt we should be okay but as cases hit North America, I felt like everyone should expect updates on how to avoid what we saw in China, Europe and in parts of North America. Still, I was optimistic about my new clinic and entertainment business prospects for the new year.

By mid March everything was shut down for everyone as the first wave hit. My entertainment business completely collapsed and has been that way since March. It is only now that prospects are returning with the movie business. As for massage, I've been allowed to work since May but by the fitness center has varying capacity or has been totally closed three times. It can not be more awful for them.

Still, limited as I have been, I can work. Had I still been at Goodlife, the doors would have been locked and not opened for any business therein.

And for a while in summer, it seemed like we might have beaten the worst of it although there was no entertainment opened which hurt my busy summer schedule.

I don't think anyone imagined it could get worse. And worse even still. I spent a great deal of summer emptying and prepping my parent's place for sale. That was every day really at the same time I worked. But I appreciated even limited work at my clinic at Serratus but with no vaccines yet, it was nerve-wracking. So many people just didn't go out or were under restrictions.

Then the second wave hit in October and for my parent's it was awful as they went to hospital with Covid 19 and I was in isolation as well. They ended up being in various hospitals from Victoria to Grace to St. Boniface Hospital. As their house sold at same time they were in terrible shape, I had to empty their seniors home as it was apparent that any recovery would be in a personal care home.

It was a scary and emotional time and I suffered in health even as I worked to get my parent's safely out of hospital. My parents are in a personal care home. Covid still has a impact there. A man died last week. People with vaccines are still vulnerable but single doses are not enough and double doses in seniors still mean you can get quite sick and lose the battle.

I thank goodness for my clinic at Serratus. I have not been idle the last year. Been working on projects while helping parents. paying the bills, seeing clients and isolating to keep myself and everyone safe.

As we get back to more normal, I can't wait to see my colleagues at work again. 

Red River Co-Op Nears Completion at Seasons in Tuxedo

For the last ten years construction has continued unabated at Seasons of Tuxedo. IKEA opened up in 2012.

In 2017 Outlet Collection mall opened up. And ever since then it has been building every year. Ten years ago there was no housing here at all but now there are a few thousand units. In the background you can see a 55 Plus apartment under construction.

What has been missing to this point in a grocery and pharmacy. That all changes soon as Red River Co-Op Grocery nears completion.

This is a day before the Red River sign went up in between rains.

There are a number of grocery stores very close to homes and apartments but we have never seen a mall ensure housing was on the same property as we have seen with Seasons of Tuxedo. The Outlet Collection has housing directly across the street and the numbers of people living within walking distance of the doors increases every month.

In addition, hotels are right on the property such as Hyatt Place seen across from Red River Co-Op Grocery.

A great deal of work has been done to put trees and landscaping in, In the near ten years of work that has been done, you can really see the difference, Having just seen Unicity, the contrast is stark on what nearly no trees looks like.

The Rec Room is right across from the Red River Co-Op Grocery as well. Like a lot of places, it has been in near shut down since it opened. It almost needs a re-opening to capture those early days.

I will keep my eyes on the grocery as it gets ready for opening day. The surge if grocery stores being built, renovated and all the hiring has been a bright spot in the economy,