True North Real Estate pulls trigger on Portage Place purchase, redevelopment

Posted on September 27, 2024 by Peggy

The real estate arm of the company that owns the Winnipeg Jets is pulling the trigger on its option to purchase the beleaguered Portage Place mall in the city’s downtown and redevelop it at an estimated cost of $650 million.

True North Real Estate Development announced Friday that it intends to close next week on its purchase of the mall from Vancouver’s Spruceland Mall Limited Partnership at an undisclosed price — along with a parallel purchase of the parkade below the mall and the rights to build above it from The Forks North Portage Partnership for $34.5 million.

Jim Ludlow, president of True North Real Estate, said the deals will place all of the mall’s assets in the hands of a single owner for the first time since Portage Place was built in the 1980s.

“For the first time in its history, 100 per cent of the control of this asset will be in one place,” he said at a Friday morning news conference on the third floor of the mall.

That, he said, will pave the way for a redevelopment that will see a health-care tower rise above the east side of the structure and a residential tower on the west side, along with a makeover of the three-storey central portion of the structure and replacement of the glass atrium at Edmonton Street with an open-air connection between Portage Avenue and Central Park.

True North first proposed the project in March 2023 and spent the last 18 months conducting due diligence. The company twice requested extension of a deadline to exercise its purchase options.

Ludlow said work on the project will begin in 2025 and wrap up in 2028. That includes the construction of a health-care tower that will include a primary care clinic, surgical space, an addictions treatment clinic, an expanded Pan Am Clinic and other medical services.

The residential tower, which will be built in partnership with the Southern Chiefs’ Organization, is slated to have 200 units, with up to 80 designated as affordable. It will be run by a non-profit organization called Project 92, jointly managed by True North and the SCO.

This tower will rise 13 storeys above the west end of the existing two-storey mall, kitty-corner from the former Hudson’s Bay Co. building, which the SCO now owns and intends to convert into a mixed-use project called Wehwehneh Bahgahkinahgohn, at a cost of at least $200 million.

Politicians in blue blazers standing in a row. — Southern Chiefs’ Organization Grand Chief Jerry Daniels, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, MP Dan Vandal, Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara and True North Real Estate president Jim Ludlow at a news conference in Portage Place on Friday. (Prabhjot Singh Lotey/CBC)

The middle of the mall will be converted into community centres and offices for community organizations, with a nominal amount of retail space and some food services, according to the plans.

All three levels of government are contributing to the project.

Saint Boniface-Saint Vital Liberal member of Parliament Dan Vandal confirmed the federal government will provide $10 million toward community spaces in the project and said a further $17 million could flow from the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation toward the residential tower.

The provincial government is supporting the project with a 35-year lease of Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and Shared Health space in the health-care tower. Premier Wab Kinew said in February the leases represent $77 million in additional health-care spending

His government has not responded to repeated CBC News requests to state the total cost of the leases. Kinew did not speak to reporters following Friday’s press conference.

The City of Winnipeg has agreed to a $40-million assistance package that includes up to $14 million worth of tax increment financing over 25 years, $10 million worth of housing grants and $16 million worth of infrastructure commitments in and around the property.