Faculty of Arts

Diane Roussin: "What's Happening with the Merchant's Hotel"

Diane Roussin, Executive Director of the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre (Ma Mawi)

At her presentation in the Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies on Oct. 30, 2012, Diane Roussin, Executive Director of the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre (Ma Mawi), started by asking what questions audience members might have about the Merchants Corner project. Responses included the following: “When will it start?”, “What’s next?”, and “How mixed will the development be?” She then moved to talk about the collaborative nature of the work with the steering committee having representation from the province, city, University of Winnipeg, Red River College, University of Manitoba, community groups such as Ma Mawi; Urban Circle Training Centre; CIDA; and members of the business committee.

The Merchant’s Hotel has already been purchased. Plans are to replace the existing three story structure on the single lot with a three- to five-story structure that take up three lots. The main floor is intended as retail space (they’re pursuing a major retailer), the second floor as an educational hub, and the remaining floor(s) as affordable housing for students and their families and others.

Jeff Palmer, Manager of Real Estate Planning and Development for the University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corporation (UWCRC), explained that UWCRC’s role is to help with the consultation process and the feasibility study. They’ve had open houses to find out what the community sees as its vision for the space and they’re involved in helping put that vision into action. The target for opening would be fall 2014.

Rob Neufeld, Executive Director of the North End Community Renewal Corporation (NECRC), said that NECRC’s role has been to call and host meetings and to act as “point person” for the project, i.e., receive communications about the project and redirect these to the appropriate person or group. The project charter is to come out of the community following particular principles such that the building will be mixed use and cooperative in nature with a mind to sustainability, economic and social development and will be intergenerational. NECRC is providing regular reports to the community and has undertaken to survey members of the community as to their ideas for the projects. The reports, survey, etc. are posted on the NECRC website at  www.necrc.org (Projects>Merchants Corner).

Jim Silver, Chair of the Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies at the University of Winnipeg, spoke about the plans for an educational hub on the second floor. What is envisioned for Merchants Corner would be an extension of the alternative education hub that has already emerged on Selkirk Avenue with several educational programs being in close proximity to one another. The new space would offer small classrooms to allow for a maximum of 25 students per class and it would be designed so that Red River College and UIC would share space. There would be a large common area and computers. They would like to include library space in the sense of programming, so that, for example, parents could bring in children for literacy programming, etc.

Urban and Inner-City Studies has partnered with Community Education Development Association (CEDA) and the Pathways to Education Program in the North End. CEDA would be able to use the educational space after school for mentoring and tutoring. Sharing the space in this way allows for connections to develop between high school students and university students, and for high school students to see university as something they see for themselves. CEDA-Pathways to Education and Urban and Inner-City Studies are also working on establishing a dual credit course, meaning that the course could be used for grade 12 credit and university credit.