Goldkobra

He's on top of the mountain, now. Drinking the good water. 

He's on top of the mountain, now. Drinking the good water. 

He's on top of the mountain, now. Drinking the good water. 

He's on top of the mountain, now. Drinking the good water. 

He's on top of the mountain, now. Drinking the good water. 

Significantly worse and this is why the City/Province is trying to force people to come back to work downtown.   I can only speak looking in from an IT perspective,  but with everything moving to the cloud and without the need of having IT equipment on site and the ability to staff your positions across the country (or world).  The need for a physical building decreases every day.  
On one project that I was involved with they moved 100 staff out of a floor in a building downtown to work from home and the cost savings was approximately 5 million per year.   It is so much cheaper for a company to buy desk/chair and pay for everyones internet then for them to maintain a building and the infrastructure.  
It needs a radical change,  they need to make downtown an area that people want to hang out or preferably live in.    They attempted to revive downtown in the 80's with Portage Place failed and retail now is even further dead so retail is out of the question.  
My radical idea to revitalize downtown is the following: 
1 - Zero tolerance on public intoxication/drugs and pan handling harassment.  It's absolutely critical that they crack down on this before anything else.   Ideally the Federal Gov't/Provincial Gov't would update the justice system so rather then sending people to jail they would be forced to get clean at a rehab facility.   Build a rehab facility out of town (NIMBY naturally) where people can get clean and healthy.   I just came back from Mexico and when we went to the downtown for tourists I saw plenty of security and was approached by zero drunk/methed up people.  I felt significantly more safe despite seeing a guy with an AK-47 protecting the jewelry store.  
2 - Close down motor traffic on Broadway from Donald to Osborne from May - September or maybe even year round.  Make this our version of Sparks St in Ottawa.   Have street festivals and restaurants with extended patios in the summer.   The city has loads of parking nearby and make this a place that people to visit and walk up and down the strip.  
3 - All 3 levels of the Gov't work with buying Portage Place and making this a University of Winnipeg International students destination.  From what I understand Portage place was designed so that condos/appartments can be build on top of each end.   The U of M have a large amount of international students coming in with huge money behind them crowding into houses and attending schools.   Get these students to come downtown with their big money and live in the housing that will be build atop Portage Place.  It would be in close proximity to the current U of W and the injection of cash from  young 18 - 30 year olds living downtown would be a huge boom that would help fill out all those empty buildings along Portage.  
4 - Launch a new "touch the universe" / science museum / childrens / agriculture Manitoba museum.    The current childrens museum we have is absolutely garbage.  Over the last five years we visited a number of other  childrens museums in the States that were heavily packed full of tourists and families.   It wasn't like they were doing anything insanely expensive but had really fun interactive activities and educational.   5 or so years ago I was fortunate to attend the Opaskwayak Indigenous days and they had really neat little activities such as learning how to bead ,  cook,  hunt, dance ,  etc...    It's a huge miss opportunity to do something similar in town with fun interactive stations.  They could have a section on farming with large interactive exhibits which many other childrens museum already have.    Etc...    A place to bring families to Winnipeg or into downtown for the local citizens. 
But alas all of that cost money and Winnipeg is broke and is extremely poor so it would require the Feds to pump in huge dollars.   
Instead the city will be to scared to fight the homeless/drunk/panhandling epidemic and will suggest cheap stupid ideas such as opening Portage and Main and will continue to stall on making any drastic changes and downtown will continue to rot.  
 
For fun I include a few pics of Sparks street to show what it is like: 


 

I've traveled a fair bit in the last decade. Canada,  us and a few places off the continent.  A lot of places I've been to, really make me appreciate winnipeg.  We have our issues,  no doubt about it.  But we have a lot in our favor too. 

I've traveled a fair bit in the last decade. Canada,  us and a few places off the continent.  A lot of places I've been to, really make me appreciate winnipeg.  We have our issues,  no doubt about it.  But we have a lot in our favor too. 

I've traveled a fair bit in the last decade. Canada,  us and a few places off the continent.  A lot of places I've been to, really make me appreciate winnipeg.  We have our issues,  no doubt about it.  But we have a lot in our favor too. 

I've traveled a fair bit in the last decade. Canada,  us and a few places off the continent.  A lot of places I've been to, really make me appreciate winnipeg.  We have our issues,  no doubt about it.  But we have a lot in our favor too.