Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 3, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A2 A 2 WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2020 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM The Free Press receives support from the Local Journalism Initiative funded by the Government of Canada VOL 149 NO 325 Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 2020 Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. Published seven days a week at 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2X 3B6, PH: 204-697-7000 Publisher / BOB COX Editor / PAUL SAMYN Associate Editor Enterprise / SCOTT GIBBONS Associate Editor News / STACEY THIDRICKSON Associate Editor Digital News / WENDY SAWATZKY Director Photo and Multimedia / MIKE APORIUS NEWSMEDIA COUNCIL The Winnipeg Free Press is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an in- dependent organization established to determine acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please send them to: editorialconcerns@freepress.mb.ca. If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the website at www.mediacouncil.ca and fill out the form or call toll-free 1-844-877- 1163 for additional information. ADVERTISING Classified (Mon-Fri): 204-697-7100 wfpclass@freepress.mb.ca Obituaries (Mon-Fri): 204-697-7384 Display Advertising : 204-697-7122 FP.Advertising@freepress.mb.ca EDITORIAL Newsroom: 204-697-7301 News tip: 204-697-7292 Fax: 204-697-7412 Photo desk: 204-697-7304 Sports desk: 204-697-7285 Business news: 204-697-7301 Photo REPRINTS: 204-697-7510 City desk / City.desk@freepress.mb.ca CIRCULATION INQUIRIES MISSING OR INCOMPLETE PAPER? Call or email before 10 a.m. weekdays or 11 a.m. Saturday City: 204-697-7001 Outside Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 press 1 6:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. Monday-Friday.; 7 a.m. - noon Saturday; Closed Sunday TO SUBSCRIBE: 204-697-7001 Out of Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 fpcirc@freepress.mb.ca CANADA POST SALES AGREEMENT NO. 0563595 Recycled newsprint is used in the production of the newspaper. PLEASE RECYCLE. INSIDE Arts and Life G1 Business C5 Classifieds E11 Comics I3-7 Community Voices E12 Destinations I1 Diversions G6,7;I8 Homes H1 Horoscope G2 Jumble G7 Miss Lonelyhearts G2 Money Matters C9 Obituaries B3 Opinion A8,9 Sports E1 Television E9 Weather E12 Weekend Review D1 49.8 F1 COLUMNISTS: Carl DeGurse A9 Niigaan Sinclair A11 Tom Brodbeck C2 Laura Rance C7 Barbara Bowes C11 Jerrad Peters E8 Doug Speirs F2 Melissa Martin F3 Alison Gillmor F10 Ben Sigurdson G3 READER SERVICE ● GENERAL INQUIRIES 204-697-7000 I T’S 10 minutes past noon, and the downtown Bay has just opened for the day, though that fact isn’t im- mediately evident inside the store. The aisles are silent, the air static. On the ground floor, a guest meanders through warrens of sale racks and discounted dresses, socially distanced to the point of being utterly alone. At a cash register around the corner, a worker rings through a couple of hur- ried customers. Employees have already been told the iconic Portage Avenue store will be closing in February; if they are grieving, they give no outward sign. There are no tears glistening above face masks, no eyes stricken by shock or confusion. The news can’t have come as a sur- prise to them. It didn’t come as a sur- prise to anyone who heard it, when the Free Press broke the news Friday af- ternoon. The writing has been on these handsome old walls for a long time, ev- ery decade adding a new stanza, a new bittersweet poetry of ways the retail hub was in terminal decline. It’s sad, yes. It has been sad for ages. The store was a place of ghosts long before it was further emptied by the COVID-19 pandemic — a place where one could squint and almost see the phantasmic forms of the women who used to fill it, resplendent in fur coats and neatly sewn dresses, elbows laden with bags of holiday shopping. The building still clings to memories of that era, when it was where all of Winnipeg came to shop, to dine or to dream. It sits wrapped in the remains of its finery, like the last living member of some deposed aristocracy: the tile mosaics in the bathrooms, the brass fixtures, the stately Tyndall stone facade quarried in Manitoba. It was a glory once, to a growing Prairie city. On the day it opened, in the winter of 1926, tens of thousands of people crowded into its staggering 650,000 square feet of space, at- tended by more than 2,000 employees, marvelling at all that was for sale. A testament to the wealth being amassed in this colonized land, and all the nice things it could buy. On the day it confirmed its impend- ing closure, only a handful of workers were standing by, tending a couple of floors still packed with merchandise but largely empty of people. This is how it ends: not with a bang, but with a sigh so faint, it can barely be consid- ered a whimper. There is no way around this. The building was not meant for the realities of modern retail business. Its founda- tion was dug with horse-drawn tools; it closes at a time when you can order items from the other side of the conti- nent, guaranteed a next-day arrival. It is an impossible building. Too big, too costly, too proud. Yet, it is sad to see it go, in the way so many old things are sad when they leave. There are a multitude of memo- ries tied up in the downtown Bay store: of shopping trips with parents (back when such a thing was still exciting), of meals at the Paddlewheel and holiday events in aisles decked with decorations. It was a living place, when we lived it. So when the news broke, Winnipeg- gers near and far were saddened, if not surprised. On Twitter, they shared the memories of the place they held in their youth, or ones told to them by their parents. Above all, most agreed, they hoped there would be some way to save the building, to make it beautiful again without all the sad. It’s not clear now what that could look like. The building was granted heritage status in 2019, so it cannot be demol- ished, and certain of its historic features must stay. However, finding another use will be a daunting effort. Consider that it has already been a subject of discus- sion for years, without much success. For a while, at least, it seemed OK to leave that question unanswered. The first few floors were still occupied by the Bay, so it was, despite its visible de- cline, a utilized space. Come February, that won’t be the case anymore. So how long will it sit empty before a developer is found who is willing to take on its size and costs? If one says “a few years,” that seems an optimistic guess. This chapter won’t find its ending for quite a while. Yet, we have to go through this part, to get to the next. It is a beautiful building. It still belongs to the city’s heart. The years have not been kind to the business that built it and filled it with life, but that ship has sailed and will not return. There may be another life to come fill it, but to get there will take a little luck, and a whole lot of work. melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca Quiet end to Bay store’s long decline MELISSA MARTIN City council’s decision in January 2019 to assign the building official heritage status has complicated mat- ters. The designation protects the building from being demolished and ensures that several features — the exterior limestone walls, the outside canopy and the curved elevator lobby, among others — are preserved in future projects. HBC said there are no immediate plans for the property after the doors close. The company has told the mayor it will work with the city and any inter- ested parties that step forward. HBC would “be open to anything” and said that it would not hold out for commercial reasons when working with potential developers, a company official said. “Nairn was clear HBC was looking to work with the community on the next step for the building,” Bowman said. “I appreciate the sense of corpo- rate stewardship and responsibility to the community they have shown.” While no one would argue that Winni- peg’s downtown no longer functions as a retail hub, there are other elements of development that are going strong. The area boasts more residents than ever, along with a steady pace of investment that includes True North Square, the Artis REIT apartment tower, Red River College’s Innovation Centre and the soon-to-open Inuit Art Centre expansion to the Winnipeg Art Gallery across the street from the Bay store. “The overall health and growth in our downtown is going in the right direction,” Bowman said. That said, having such a large build- ing, which occupies a full city block, sitting empty would cause problems for any city. Craig Patterson, a professor at the University of Alberta’s school of retail- ing, and the editor-in-chief of Retail In- sider, said the demise of downtown Winnipeg’s last department store speaks to the suburbanization of retail. “The department store concept is on the way out in North America,” he said. “There is great downtown devel- opment, but the actual retail side of things is not what it used to be.” Patterson, who is researching the Hudson’s Bay Co. and has done work on the decline of retailing in U.S. city centres, said such a large empty build- ing can be bad for downtown. “We have seen it in other cities,” he said, “It can become a blight.” Maureen Atkinson, senior partner at retail consulting firm J.C. Williams Group, said, “People will bemoan the loss of a store like that, but the reality is, the reason the store is being lost is because people are not shopping there.” But downtown economic develop- ment officials are not without hope. Dayna Spiring, CEO of Economic Development Winnipeg, said she has seen renderings of what is possible in that building. “I think the store closing simplifies the issue,” she said. “Now we are not having to deal with retail on the main floor. “There are challenges for sure. It’s a big building. But it is a landmark. There are opportunities, given its size, to really do something unique on the inside.” Kate Fenske, who runs the Down- town BIZ, said news of the store’s impending closure was hard to take. “We all have fond memories of going to that store,” she said. “I just bought a new rain jacket there that I love, this spring.” While she said its closure marks a significant shift in the downtown land- scape, it could also be an opportunity to start talking about the future. “It’s important not to lose sight of major investments that are happening in the heart of the city,” she said. “I think we need to look at this as a really good time to have a conversation in the community about what we want our downtown to be in the future. There is so much potential... and it’s important to keep that momentum going even during a pandemic.” martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca BAY ● FROM A1 MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The downtown Bay main floor on Friday, after the plan to close the store was announced. I hate waiting in lines. And while I haven’t had to get a COVID-19 test, I can only imagine what it’s been like for thousands of Manitobans stuck in hours-long queues before the deep nasal swab could be administered. As our reporting has made clear in recent days, the long- promised increase in testing capacity isn’t just around the corner. So we are doing what we can to help those wondering how long it is going to take to get a test. It would have been nice if the province was posting wait times at the various centres to better inform the public. But since it hasn’t, we are filling the void. We’ve created a COVID test- ing wait-time tracker that will allow you to get a better sense of how much time you’ll need to set aside before you get into line. If you’re in line for a test, share your estimated wait using our easy form, located at wfp.to/covidwait. It takes just a moment — you only need to re- port your location and wait time. If you’re planning to go for a test, visit wfp.to/covidwait to see wait times reported by fellow Winnipeggers. We hope this free resource will help you choose a site where you’ll spend the least time in line. The more people use the tracker, the more accurate it will be. Please share the link far and wide so we can get the best data possible to make things eas- ier for Manitobans waiting to get a COVID-19 test. — Paul Samyn is the Free Press Editor paul.samyn@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @paulsamyn PAUL SAMYN Free Press launches crowd-sourced tracker for COVID testing wait times A_02_Oct-03-20_FP_01.indd A2 2020-10-02 10:40 PM ;