Portage Place meets a lot of needs, as touted by downtown boosters eating cake to celebrate the mall’s 25th anniversary last week. Unfortunately, those include random stabbings and shootings and heaps of criticism from urbanists who say the mall has killed Portage Avenue. In a perfect world, we’d tear it down and start from scratch, says urban issues critic Robert Galston.
“It’s something you really can’t work around if you want to restore Portage Avenue and make it a better place — whatever that looks like, whether that’s high-end retail, or smaller restaurants,” Galston said. “If you really want to correct that mistake, you’re going to have to think about razing that building or razing part of it or severely altering it.”
It’s not the worst thing happening downtown — Galston gives that nod to Air Canada Centre — but the sheer scale of the building means it looms large over the area.
“I certainly don’t enjoy being there. Particularly, the food court is an unenjoyable place to be. But it’s where a lot of services downtown are, so you have to use it, if you’re there during the day.”
Read the full story here: https://winnipegsun.com/2012/09/19/portage-place-time-to-tear-it-down-and-start-anew/wcm/b49f9e3f-faeb-4552-a41c-83b608ce1734