Public Safety Building to remain intact and closed to public for at least another year
The demolition of the vacant Public Safety Building is on hold until 2018 at the earliest to allow the city to consult the public about what should rise on the site of the city's old police headquarters and the adjacent Civic Centre Parkade.
Winnipeg downtown development agency CentreVenture announced today it's about to start asking for public opinions about what should replace the Public Safety Building, which has sat empty on Princess Street near city hall since June 2016, when the Winnipeg Police Service moved into its new $214-million headquarters on Graham Avenue.
CentreVenture president and CEO Angela Mathieson said public feedback about the reuse of the Public Safety Building site should be presented to council's property committee in October. The city would then start looking at redevelopment plans in 2018, she said.
Those plans must be mindful of a caveat placed on the southern third of the site in 1875, when that portion of the land was sold to the city for $600 on the condition it be used for a public market or another public amenity.
Mayor Brian Bowman said he does not believe shovels could be in the ground before 2018, an election year in Winnipeg. He declined to state what he would prefer to see on the site.
Council voted to demolish the Public Safety Building in 2016, after an external consultant concluded it wasn't financially feasible to retrofit the building even though it is structurally sound.
Council voted in 2009 to move the police service to its current home in the former Canada Post building on Graham Avenue. Council was not informed the estimated cost of that project was pegged at roughly the same price as renovating the Public Safety Building and expanding it over the Civic Centre Parkade.
The construction of the new police headquarters remains the subject of an RCMP investigation.
