The Prince Edward Hotel

Brandon Sun - ONLINE EDITION

The Brandon Gallery is not what was planned

The Prince Edward Hotel at 100

By: Grant Hamilton

Friday, Jun. 22, 2012 at 4:23 PM | Comments: 0

A conceptual sketch of the original plan for the Brandon Gallery downtown mall. A downscaled version was eventually built, now known as the Town Center. This sketch shows the mall several stories high, with underground parking, an atrium stretching its full length, and skywalks connecting it to other nearby buildings.

In the background of the debate over the Prince Edward Hotel, another major transformation was taking place downtown

Enlarge Image

This sketch shows several stories of apartments and offices that were supposed to be built on top of the two stories of retail. (BRANDON SUN FILE)

Enlarge Image

Just a stone's throw away from demolition on the Prince Edward Hotel, seen in the background, a workman trimmed a section of an old beam as the steel work for the new The Brandon Gallery began to rise along the Ninth Street side of the downtown complex. This photo appeared in the Brandon Sun on Thursday, Feb. 21, 1980. (DIRK ABERSON / BRANDON SUN FILE)

Faced with consumers who were heading to the suburban Brandon Shoppers Mall and the brand-new west-end K-mart, the city struck back to protect its historic downtown commercial core.

Related Items

Articles
- Part 4: Vacancy, debate and demolition

And how do you fight fire? With fire.

Accordingly, and drawing on a number of studies done in the early 1970s, city council embarked on an ambitious plan to build a downtown shopping mall.

First, in 1970, the Brandon Area Transportation Study looked at creating a pedestrian mall on part of Rosser Avenue. That would send Princess Avenue back to two-way traffic, it was thought, and force the elimination of parking on Princess — "not unreasonable from the traffic standpoint" the study concluded.

Then came a 1971 proposal to cover over Rosser Avenue between Sixth and 10th Streets. Architect Glenn W. Lawson suggested that cars could park on the roof, which would be accessible via a series of ramps from the south.

Neither of those proposals went anywhere, but each set the stage for a 1972 study conducted as a thesis by Gordon Hlynsky at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture.

Hlynsky gave three options for a downtown mall to revitalize the core of Brandon:

embark on the project to cover over Rosser Avenue
build a climate-controlled mall using a "town centre concept"
construct a much larger, multi-level, multi-function mall structure

It was that last that got peoples’ attention. And in 1975, the city hired a consulting firm, Damas and Smith, to make it happen.

Their plan envisioned a two-storey retail mall between Rosser Avenue and Princess Avenue and between Seventh and Ninth Streets, with several levels of apartments above, an integrated hotel, room for the city’s long-wanted arts centre, and underground parking.

Quite obviously, that’s not quite what the city got, in the end.

With no developer willing to step up and actually build the thing, City Hall began to take matters into their own hands.

They partnered with Damas and Smith — the consultants willing to take a chance on becoming developers themselves — and started buying up land.

Eventually, the city spent more than $600,000 on buying property, with thousands more spent on demolishing the buildings that were in the way of the new mall. The city, expecting its investment to pay off quickly in tax revenues, leased out the land in a sweetheart deal — just $1 for 99 years.

Plans for the mall, which would be named the Brandon Gallery, were scaled down as Damas and Smith had trouble lining up both financing and mall tenants. Meanwhile, the cost ballooned to $10 million, and then to $13 million.

The mall that was eventually built scrapped both the apartments and hotel, dramatically cut down on the retail and service space, and plopped cars on the exposed roof instead of in a protected underground parkade.

The Gallery opened at the end of 1980 — just in time for an economic recession. And a year later, the Brandon Shoppers Mall struck back with a $6.5 million expansion of its own.

Meanwhile, the idea of earning back its $600,000 investment through tax revenues wasn’t out quite as hoped.

Although the money’s long since been recouped (according to the tax rolls, the Town Centre now pays more than $110,000 every year), property values in the area actually fell between 1975 and 1985 — the opposite of what revitalization was supposed to do.

In 1975, every building (save one) along Rosser Avenue between Sixth Street and 11th Street was assessed at more than $400 per foot.

A decade later, some two-thirds of those properties were assessed much lower — between $200-399 per foot. The damage extended further, too. Properties along Ninth Street — facing the blank wall of the Brandon Gallery’s west side, and lacking any draw from a now-demolished Prince Edward Hotel — saw their property values halved.

The downtown mall would never really be the engine of downtown revitalization that had been hoped.

blog comments powered by Disqus

Rate this
This article has not yet been rated.

We want you to tell us what you think of our articles. If the story moves you, compels you to act or tells you something you didn’t know, mark it high. If you thought it was well written, do the same. If it doesn’t meet your standards, mark it accordingly.

You can also register and/or login to the site and join the conversation by leaving a comment.

Rate it yourself by rolling over the stars and clicking when you reach your desired rating. We want you to tell us what you think of our articles. If the story moves you, compels you to act or tells you something you didn’t know, mark it high.

Sort by: Newest to Oldest | Oldest to Newest | Most Popular 0 Comments

You can comment on most stories on brandonsun.com. You can also agree or disagree with other comments. All you need to do is register and/or login and you can join the conversation and give your feedback.

There are no comments at the moment. Be the first to post a comment below.

Post Your Comment

The Brandon Sun does not necessarily endorse any of the views posted. Comments are moderated before publication. By submitting your comment, you agree to our Terms and Conditions. New to commenting? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions.