City councillors ignore HBC, vote to protect downtown Bay with heritage status By: Ryan Thorpe Posted: 7:00 PM CST Thursday, Nov. 22, 2018

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This article was published 21/11/2018 (2129 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The iconic Hudson’s Bay Company building in downtown Winnipeg is a step closer to being added to the city’s list of historical resources, but it isn’t over the final hurdle yet.

The city’s historical buildings and resources committee voted in favour of giving the building and garage heritage status Thursday, ignoring HBC’s expressed desires, having submitted a written request for that not to happen.

“It’s a landmark. It really is a Winnipeg landmark,” Coun. Brian Mayes said. “There’s a ton of history there. I know there’s economic viability issues. But we’ll try to protect it.

“You’d hate to lose something that’s got that much — that many decades of history. So we struggle on.”

Committee chairman John Orlikow (River Heights-Fort Garry) was not present for the vote due to a personal matter, leaving Mayes (St. Vital) and Point Douglas councillor Vivian Santos as council’s representatives on the committee.

Now that the request for heritage status has been approved, the matter will move on to the property and development committee.

If the owner again registers in opposition, but the request is approved by property and development, it would then go to the executive policy committee before going to council for a final vote.

The designation would prove too expensive for the owner, HBC vice-president and associate general council Franco Perugini wrote in a signed statement.

“These elements are too costly to maintain and restore and for certain elements the replacement parts are not available,” he wrote.

Mayes acknowledged the economic viability of the building is a question that needs to be worked through but given its history, it’s important to do whatever can be done to save and maintain it.

“There’s a lot of history there. The question is how do we save it and make it economically viable? I don’t necessarily have an answer for that. But we’ll try to protect it for the time being,” he said.

In total, four interior and four exterior aspects of the 93-year-old building were identified as “character-defining elements” by the committee, including the “limestone clad, six-storey structure filling the north portion of the block of Portage Avenue.”

City officials believe there is special architectural and historical significance to the building at Portage Avenue and Memorial Boulevard requiring the protection that accompanies the designation; demolition would be prohibited and the city would have to grant permission before any alterations to the identified character-defining elements.

“It’s definitely a landmark. I went there buying (vinyl records) with my friends in the ’70s,” Mayes said. “I’m sure every family has memories from the place. My father used to sit there watching the Hudson’s Bay choir singing on the steps in the ’40s, which was a big Christmas thing.

“He grew up in the country and he said that’s when he really felt like he’d arrived in the city… when he went to see that.”

Construction began in 1925 and the store officially opened for business in November 1926.

Winnipeggers watched — and some participated — in a bitter months-long battle over the fate of another retail landmark a few blocks east.

The landmark Eaton’s building on Portage Avenue between Donald and Hargrave streets — the once-mighty family chain’s first location in Western Canada — opened in 1905 and had a significant impact on the city’s landscape, shifting development focus onto Portage Avenue.

The building sat empty for several years after Eaton’s declared bankruptcy in the late 1990s. Attempts preserve the building with heritage status ultimately failed and demolition began in 2002 to make way for Bell MTS Place, one of the first steps on the path to bringing a National Hockey League franchise back to the city after the first iteration of the Winnipeg Jets moved to Phoenix after the 1995-96 season.

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @rk_thorpe

Ryan Thorpe
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Ryan Thorpe likes the pace of daily news, the feeling of a broadsheet in his hands and the stress of never-ending deadlines hanging over his head.

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