Hotel soon? Don’t bet on it 2013 deal to save Assiniboia Downs dragging on perilously long By: Paul Wiecek Posted: 4:20 PM CDT Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018 Last Modified: 10:49 AM CDT Friday, Aug. 3, 2018 Updates

Opinion

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This article was published 01/08/2018 (2242 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It sounded like a sure bet.

Five years ago, in December, 2013, the Manitoba Jockey Club and Peguis First Nation announced an extraordinary partnership that was going to see the parking lot at Assiniboia Downs transformed into an exciting new hotel and conference centre development.

Papers had been signed. Money changed hands. Artist renderings were rendered. And the partnership seemed a match made in heaven:

On one side, you had the non-profit ownership of a declining thoroughbred racetrack, under attack by the previous NDP government and desperately in need of a new partner and new revenue streams. On the other side, you had a nine-figure land settlement and a First Nation needing a place to invest the money. What could go wrong?

Nothing and everything, it would appear.

Because as we head into the biggest weekend of the year for local racing — Monday’s 70th running of the Manitoba Derby (I’m going with Colorado Derby winner Fortified Effort at 5-1) — that parking lot to the south of the Downs grandstand that looked so enticing in that artist rendering has still yet to see a single shovel go into the ground.

And while everyone I talked to this week continues to insist it’s all still just a matter of when, not if, five years is a long time to not build a modest $30-$50 million hotel, water park and conference centre.

By way of context, True North Sports and Entertainment announced the $400 million True North Square project in February, 2016. Last month, tenants began moving in.

So what gives? And when, if ever, are those weeds in the Downs parking lot going to be replaced with a development the MJC believes is crucial to securing the future of thoroughbred racing in this province for another generation.

“Did we think it would take this long? Absolutely not,” MJC president Harvey Warner told me Thursday following the annual Derby news conference.

“But this is the first time we’ve entered into an arrangement like this. And as you know, there’s also a lot of other things on Peguis’s plate right now.”

Man, ain’t that the truth.

Peguis leadership last week made headlines with the announcement it will establish Winnipeg’s second urban reserve on land the band owns on Portage Avenue, across the street from the RCMP’s provincial headquarters.

On top of that, the band has also gone all-in on cannabis legalization, with land already purchased in both Winnipeg and Selkirk that will serve as a massive grow-op run by the band and partners in the cannabis industry.

Quick tangent: I’m praying Peguis marries these two initiatives, using their Portage Avenue urban reserve to set up a retail pot shop. I would willingly give up 10 years of sobriety for a chance to smoke a fatty on the lawn across the street from Mountie headquarters.

But I digress.

The bottom line as far as I could determine this week is that putting up a new development on Downs property is a lot more urgent right now to the people who run the track than to the people who run Peguis.

Now, I’d love to tell you what Peguis has to say about all this, but I was unable to reach Chief Glenn Hudson this week. Hudson was invited to Thursday’s Derby newser, but didn’t show, which probably doesn’t mean much.

The man is busy and Peguis’s interest in the Downs always had little do with racing and a lot more to do with the unlimited potential of a pristine piece of undeveloped land that sits adjacent to the Trans-Canada Highway as it enters the city’s western limits.

Make no mistake, sooner or later the Downs land is going to be developed in a partnership between the MJC, Peguis and, in all likelihood, a hotel chain. Peguis has already spent $15 million to purchase land from the MJC and has an agreement to purchase $7 million more.

Nobody walks away from that kind of investment, no matter how busy or otherwise occupied they are.

Ideally, both Peguis and the Downs would like any new development to include a casino, but both parties have told me in the past they’re willing to go ahead without one and they have a feasibility study to show that a standalone hotel, water park and conference centre would also be profitable.

That’s good because the Pallister government has told the Downs and Peguis the same thing the previous NDP told them — there are no plans to add any new casinos in Winnipeg right now. A report on the future of the horse racing industry in Manitoba, commissioned by the province, is due out later this month.

I’m told most of the preliminary work on the Downs site has been done. Zoning has been approved. Two high profile developers have made proposals. A couple of hotel chains have pitched as well.

This thing is ready to go, in other words, the moment Peguis finally gives the go-ahead.

But when that day will come remains the big question mark.

And it needs to be said: If something doesn’t happen soon, this will at some point become a matter of some urgency for the MJC.

The track still has six years left on its VLT deal with the province, the proceeds of which go to funding purses and basically keeping the lights on at the Downs.

But that deal is structured in a way that will see the Downs cut of the profits from those VLTs slowly drop as the deal begins to wind down. And when that day comes, the Downs better have another stream of revenue to fund horse racing or horse racing as we’ve known it in this city forever will quickly cease to exist.

Five years have come and gone. If it takes another five years, it will be the Downs and thoroughbred racing that might be gone.

email: paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek

Paul Wiecek
Reporter (retired)

Paul Wiecek was born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End and delivered the Free Press -- 53 papers, Machray Avenue, between Main and Salter Streets -- long before he was first hired as a Free Press reporter in 1989.

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