“Heart of Gold,” three year later
Looking through some old articles, I came across this one from the Winnipeg Free Press, published in March 2008, where I wrote of Centre Venture luring the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority to build their ghastly head offices to the Main Street strip:
Perhaps to prove it is still able to deliver big projects like Red River College on Princess Avenue, or the condos on Waterfront Drive, CentreVenture seems to be stretching this development as far as possible. So far, however, there is none of the redeeming qualities those early CentreVenture projects had, and by its destructive nature will be unable to act as a catalyst for economic growth on North Main.
Assuming the mission of Centre Venture Development Corporation is still to be an “advocate and catalyst for business investment, development and economic growth in downtown Winnipeg,” and that the general purpose of downtown revitalization projects are to uplift the surroundings (rather than just be quantitative successes in their own right) it may be worthwhile to look at what the “spin-off” effects of Centre Venture and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s move to Main Street in 2008-2009.
The number of businesses that opened or relocated to Main Street between City Hall and the CPR tracks between 2006 and 2008: five.
The number of businesses that opened or relocated to Main Street between City Hall and the CPR tracks between 2008 and 2011: zero.
Measuring the effects of public-led urban renewal—taking stock of what worked, what didn’t, what are the “lessons learned,” et cetera—seems like something that should come with being a corporation. That way, an organization can move forward and succeed, taxpayers get a better return on “investment,” and naysaying bloggers can eventually be proven wrong.
Three years later on Main Street, this has yet to happen.
