Calgary vs Winnipeg as Urban Hot Spots (Part 2)
By Richard White, February, 8 2014 (this blog appeared in the Calgary Herald's New Condos section on February 8, 3014 titled "Exchange District is tough to beat.")
Last week compared downtown Winnipeg vs Calgary from the perspective of museums, galleries, attractions, sports and river developments (East Village/Stampede Park vs The Forks). Overall it was a tie. Let the play continue…
Placemaking Fun
Winnipeg’s Exchange District is one of the best collection of late 19th and early 20th century buildings in North America. It is a walk back in time as you flaneur the area with its old bank and warehouse buildings. It is fun place to shop for vintage clothing, furniture, home accessories and art. Together, Stephen Avenue and Inglewood just can’t compete with the Exchange District’s architecture and streetscapes.
Winnipeg's Exchange District has some of the best late 19th and early 20th century buildings in North America.
Calgary's Stephen Avenue is a National Historic District and one of North America's best restaurant rows.
Osborne Village is Winnipeg’s equivalent to Calgary’s Kensington Village. Both are separated from the downtown core by the river, have a major Safeway store a key anchor and a “main street” of shops and restaurants. Kensington wins here given its greater diversity and depth of boutiques and restaurants, its vintage Plaza Theatre and funky new condos.
Winnipeg has two grand classic urban boulevard streets – Portage Avenue and Main Street; Calgary has none. While Portage and Main is one of the most famous intersections in Canada, it generally isn’t for good reason. It has a reputation as being the coldest and windiest urban corner in Canada.
Calgary’s downtown lacks a grand, ceremonial street that is so often associated with great cities. Though charming, Stephen Avenue simply lacks grandeur.
Over the past 10 years, the University of Winnipeg Campus on the western edge of the city’s downtown has blossomed into a major urban campus with some wonderful contemporary buildings, much like Calgary’s SAIT campus - unfortunately it’s not downtown. Red River College also has a campus in Winnipeg’s Exchange District, similar to our Bow Valley College.
The Buhler Centre is just one of many new University of Winnipeg campus buildings that is changing the face of downtown Winnipeg. This building is an office building, art gallery and home to Stella Cafe.
Bow Valley College has just completed a major expansion in downtown Calgary. The College is home to an amazing collection of contemporary art.
Similarities also exist between Calgary’s Bridgeland (once called “Little Italy”) and Winnipeg’s St. Boniface (the largest French-speaking community west of the Great Lakes). Not only are both communities across the river from their respective downtowns, but both were home to a major hospital. In Calgary’s case, the hospital has been replaced by condos, while the St. Boniface Hospital is still very much a part of its health care facilities.
Advantage: Winnipeg
Architecture / Urban Design
Winnipeg boasts better historic architecture with its large buildings like the Beaux Arts-style Manitoba Legislative Building (1920), considered by many as one of the finest public buildings in North America. Other large historic buildings include Union Station (1911) that still serves as a passenger train station, the Vaughan Street Jail (1881), Law Courts (1916), St. Mary’s Cathedral (1881), St Boniface City Hall (1906) and the iconic Bank of Montreal (1913) at the corner of Portage and Main.
Winnipeg is home to a number of major historic buildings including the beaux arts architecture of the Manitoba Legislative Building. In addition to being big, bold and beautiful, there is a mystery around some of the architectural elements like the sphinxes that has lead to a Hermetic Code theory.
Courthouse Building
Most of Calgary’s historic buildings on the other hand are smaller structures, with the only large-scale historic building being Mewata Armoury.
Calgary’s architectural forte is its modern office architecture, which makes sense given most of Calgary’s growth as been in the last 50 years, while Winnipeg’s was pre-1960s. It might interest Calgarians to know that there is a proposal floating around Winnipeg to build a mixed-use, 55-story building that will build on the strength of the recently completed Manitoba Hydro building, a 22-story building that received LEED Platinum certification and deemed as the most energy efficient building in North America in 2012.
Manitoba Hydro building was one of the first LEED Platinum office building in North America.
The twin towers of Eight Avenue Place are one of several mega office towers recently completed or under construction. Downtown Calgary is home to one of the largest concentration of corporate headquarters in North America.
Yes, Winnipeg even has a bridge to match Calgary’s Calatrava Peace Bridge. Its locally designed Esplanade Riel (2003) pedestrian bridge connects downtown to St. Boniface in unique ways. It is attached to the Provencher Bridge for vehicles with an upscale restaurant in the middle that offers outstanding views. The bridge with its 57-meters high spire (20-story high pole) has cables that stretch out in teepee- like fashion. It is bold, beautiful and elegant night and day.
Esplanade Riel Pedestrian Bridge over the Red River in Winnipeg with restaurant in the middle.
Calgary's Peace Bridge, designed by Santiago Calatrava.
Rather than building a new central library, Winnipeg opted for a mega-makeover of its existing Centennial Library as a millennium project. Rebranded as the Millennium Library, it is a wonderful contemporary glass building with commanding views of the Millennium Library Park completed in 2012.
The Library Park has an artificial wetland, wooden walkway, a stand of birch trees and two significant pieces of public art, that combine to make it a wonderful urban space. The Park’s centerpiece is Bill Pechet’s “Emptyful,” a playful Erlenmeyer flask-shaped fountain illuminated by four bands of LED lighting, that in the summer, illuminate the water and fog from the flask in blue, green and purple hues. In the winter, when the water elements are not operational, the artwork is lit up in reds, organs and yellows.
Winnipeg's Millennium Library and Park.
Bill Pechet artist and Chris Pekas of Lightworks 35 ft high and 31 ft wide sculpture "Emptyful."
Jaume Plensa's sculpture "Wonderland" on the plaza in front of The Bow office tower designed by Norman Foster.
Calgary’s closest equivalent is the “Wonderland” artwork by Jaume Plensa on the plaza of the Bow office tower. Though attractive, it lacks the same fun factor that “Emptyful” has and there are no benches or other elements to invite you to sit and linger.
Advantage: Tied
Condo Living
Winnipeg simply can’t compete with the diversity and density of condo development that Calgary offers. While there is some condo development along the Red River near the Exchange District, it is nothing like Calgary’s Bridgeland, West End, Eau Claire, Mission, Beltline or Erlton developments.
New condos along the Red River in Downtown Winnipeg.
New condos on First Street SW one of seven districts with new high-rise condo development in the city centre.
What Winnipeg does offer is some amazing loft living in the old buildings in its Exchange District warehouses. There are also many attractive condos and apartments along the Assiniboine River in the Osborne Village area right along the river. I used to think they would be great places to live when I lived in downtown Winnipeg in the mid ‘70s while attending the University of Manitoba. And I still do.
Advantage: Calgary
Last Word
If you look at the three big variables for downtown vitality – live, work and play Calgary would seem the clear winner. It has more contemporary condos, and more jobs for the professional GABEsters (Geologists, Accountants, Bankers, Brokers and Engineers). But if you were a young hipster (creative type), Winnipeg offers more appeal with its affordable and attractive studio loft living.
Winnipeg’s downtown is also much more attractive to small businesses as real estate prices and rents are significantly lower. REITs and Pension Fund landowners, who are not interested in the “mom and pop” start-ups, dominate Calgary’s downtown.
Looking a little further afield, Calgary is just one hour away from its mountain playgrounds and Winnipeg is just one hour to cottage country. Take away Calgary’s downtown office towers and there is not much difference between Calgary and Winnipeg (as evidence by the tied score when comparing seven elements of urban vitality).
It seems to me almost everyone I know in Calgary has some connection to Winnipeg…perhaps we should be sister cities. Next time you are in Winnipeg visiting family or friends or on business, I recommend heading downtown to flaneur the Exchange District and The Forks, maybe take in a baseball game, an exhibition at the WAG (Winnipeg Art Gallery) or tour the Legislature building. There is more to Winnipeg than first meets the eye.
If you like this blog, you might like:
Calgary vs Winnipeg as Urban Hot Spots (Part 1)