Almost.
Imagine picking up the paper and discovering a plan to wipe out half your street. According to the front-page Winnipeg Free Press story of March 1, 1972, the scheme to redevelop Glendale Country Club was no mere proposal; construction was scheduled to start that November. The only outstanding stipulation was an application to have the lands rezoned.
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You heard it here first. Winnipeg Free Press, Wednesday, March 1, 1972
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What was especially alarming to the neighbours was that the development would swallow the houses (and back lane) on the east side of St. Charles Street. While we felt relief in being on the west side, no-one relished the thought of this enormous development happening.
St. Charles, an old French parish, was an enclave that had a small-town atmosphere, contained as it was by Portage Avenue, the Perimeter Highway, the Assiniboine River, and Glendale Country Club. This was our territory as children, and we ran carefree and loose in our range.
Glendale Country Club shareholders had approved the idea, and were quite prepared to relocate west of the Perimeter Highway. According to Glendale 50th Anniversary Yearbook, many members felt that selling this lucrative piece of property would allow them to build a newer, larger golf course elsewhere that would provide many other amenities that the current golf course needed. A call for tenders was sent out and the highest offer was from the St. Maurice Capital Corporation of Montreal.
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This 1961 map identifies the Glendale Golf Course property. Whittier Street is now Bedson Street. Note the two Ferry Roads. The one south of the Assiniboine River identifies where the St. Charles Street ferry crossed. A housing development wiped that out. Other street names have since changed, too.
[Source: https://www.newpghs.com/historical-maps]
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Porteous Street was west of present-day Bedson Street in Westwood. The name Porteous Street no longer exits; it was redeveloped into residential bays like Twain and Dickens.
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Newspaper illustration (top) and architects' rendering (bottom).
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According to the rendering, highrise apartments and other housing would be part of the development. It is hard to conceptualize. Locate the river, Perimeter Hwy. and St. Charles Catholic Church to get your bearings. The church appears to be misplaced, several streets are shown between St. Charles Street and the Perimeter Highway, and Buchanan Blvd. and Stewart Street south of Portage Avenue appear to have been swallowed whole by a department store.
In anticipation, Glendale took an option on about 300 acres 8 miles west of Glendale, on the Assiniboine River, near St. Francois Xavier. But on March 31, 1973 St. Maurice Capital dropped their option. The Club then dropped its option on the St. Francois Xavier property, forfeiting $25,000.
Glendale tried the idea once more and purchased a parcel of land on the Assiniboine River east of Headingley adjacent to the land they'd considered previously. The 310 acres of land cost $330,000. High financing costs discouraged members, who also preferred the closer St. Charles location, and the idea fizzled. The land was sold for $400,000, but interest and other charges wiped out any profit and left a debt of $90,000. By 1984 the Club owed the bank $700,000 and was losing members. Their solution in May 1987 was to sell 13 acres that fronted Portage Avenue, for $4 million. The course was re-designed and the funds allowed renovations to the Clubhouse.
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| Glendale Country Club as it remains today. Originally it extended to Portage Avenue. |
The initial idea of a huge retail and housing development in St. Charles was not so far-fetched. After the Glendale sale of 1972 fell through, Unicity Mall was built directly north of Portage Avenue, across from the golf course. Much of that property was empty pasture, but it did require expropriation of the east side of Knox Street and the west side of David Street. The mall opened in 1975 and was only the third enclosed shopping centre in the city (after Polo Park and Grant Park). It was followed in short order by the St. Vital Mall, a much more successful enterprise serving the growing population in the southeast end of the city.
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Unicity Shopping Centre site today, a collection of big box stores that replaced the enclosed mall.
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In 1975 Unicity was a much-heralded new mall, boasting a radial plan that made travel between its anchor stores (The Bay, Woolco and Dominion) quick. Alas, when Wal-Mart swallowed up the Woolco stores it deemed them too small, and today the property is a boring, ugly big box store destination centre, rather than a true mall.
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Unicity Mall, c. 1999. Wal-Mart had replaced Woolco, but was not content with the small size of the store.
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Some planners anticipate a move back to the enclosed mall concept, where you can shop without needing a car to travel between stores. (That idea strikes me as so, well, American.) The mall idea makes much more sense to an aging population in Winnipeg's climate.
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Westwood Village Shopping Center on the south side of Portage Avenue and a few km east of Glendale: Safeway and Zellers connected by a strip mall.
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| The Frasers with Grandma Stevens at Polo Park, when it was only one-storey and had an open roof. Keep your mitts on, kids. |
