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CBC
6 days ago
- Business
- CBC
Weeks after pedestrian-friendly facelift, paint already peeling on new Graham Avenue murals
Murals on the now pedestrian-friendly Graham Avenue were meant to bring a splash of colour to downtown Winnipeg. But just weeks after being painted, cracks are already beginning to form in some of that artwork. "I think anything that beautifies the downtown is a good project," downtown resident Barb Janes said on Wednesday. "I'm sad they didn't do more research on the paint, because it's already peeling up, and that's kind of disrespectful to the artists." After being used for three decades as a transit corridor, buses were moved off of Graham Avenue in July, when the city introduced its new transit plan, and a pilot project was introduced to transform the downtown street into a pedestrian corridor. Rochelle Squires, the CEO of CentreVenture, one of the downtown organizations that worked on transforming the area, said murals now on the street were funded through a $100,000 US grant from the American charity Bloomberg Philanthropies. The work was done by local company Cool Streets, over an approximately 10 day-period. On Tuesday, peeling paint could already be seen on some parts of the murals, and Squires said Cool Streets will be responsible for any repairs. "We understand that there's some repairs that need to be made to the street paint, and that's part of the maintenance agreement with Cool Streets," Squires said. "Ongoing maintenance will be part of that, absolutely." Stéphane Dorge of Cool Streets, who was the project manager on the mural project, blamed some of the peeling issues on the condition of the street, as well as the quick timeline in which the pieces were painted. "There's definitely more paint peeling than we had hoped for, but essentially two days before we started painting, this was an industrial road for transit buses only," Dorge said. "It was 20 years of transit buses leaking oil on the street, heavy tire wear really polishing the concrete, so we anticipated that longevity of the paint wouldn't be the same as using the product on brand new concrete or brand new asphalt, as we typically would." According to Dorge, the murals are only supposed to be on the street for this year and next year, before he said the city will work on a more permanent design for the corridor, and they do plan to touch up the murals at the end of this upcoming winter. "It's something that's meant to fade, it's meant to be replaced in the long term," he said. Despite the peeling, Dorge believes the murals are still a great benefit to the downtown. "It's definitely a challenge to work on this scale at this speed, and this type of surface, but I think the benefits far outweigh the visual impacts of the wear," Dorge said. In a statement the city of Winnipeg said, "Before the paint was applied we decided not to chemically treat the street, as this would have added at least a week to the timeline and increased costs and chemical run off. We did, however, clean it as thoroughly as possible prior to the first application. "As this is a pilot project, we'll be able to use this data when considering the permanent redesign of the street." Cracks forming in Winnipeg's plan to rejuvenate downtown street 11 hours ago The City of Winnipeg got to work this summer on a rejuvenation plan to give Graham Avenue a more dynamic feel, with the work including a street mural covering 24,000 square feet of road. Now, less than two months later, the street mural is peeling.
CBC
25-04-2025
- Business
- CBC
CentreVenture signs agreement to support study on restoring historic downtown Winnipeg church
An agreement has been made to begin a study on the possibility of restoring a historic downtown Winnipeg church threatened with demolition. CentreVenture Development Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding to fund the first phase of a heritage restoration study at Holy Trinity Anglican Church, a more than 140-year-old church at the corner of Smith Street and Graham Avenue, near both the Canada Life Centre and Millennium Library. The church, built in 1884, needs an estimated $7 million in repairs due to significant structural issues. The agreement was signed with the Parish of Holy Trinity, the Diocese of Rupert's Land of the Anglican Church of Canada, Monteyne Architecture and CentreVenture, a Friday news release from the development agency said. The diocese "celebrates the vision that this partnership will work toward," executive archdeacon Simon Neal Blaikie said in the release, calling it "a great day for the city of Winnipeg and the parishioners of Holy Trinity." Mayor Scott Gillingham called the church "a landmark of Winnipeg's history and a key piece of our downtown." CentreVenture's president and CEO, Rochelle Squires, said heritage buildings are "a unique asset" to Winnipeg's downtown, with each telling "a unique and rich story about our shared history." Under the agreement, CentreVenture — an arm's-length City of Winnipeg development agency focused on downtown projects — has committed to funding up to half of the cost of a feasibility study into stabilizing and restoring the building, which is a designated National Historic Site of Canada and a protected historical building in Winnipeg. The church has significant structural damage, including water damage and cracks that creep up the walls around the altar and elsewhere in the building. In an annual report released last year, the parish said it has been aware since the late 1980s that "major repairs to build a foundation under the historic church would be necessary to avoid a collapse." When Holy Trinity was built, it was not uncommon for buildings in Winnipeg to be constructed without foundations. Without an estimated $7 million in repairs, "structural failure and/or the building being condemned is likely a matter of months to a few years at most," an April 2024 post on the diocese's website said. The first phase of the rehabilitation study will be led by Monteyne Architecture and includes building monitoring, surveying, conditions assessment, environmental and hazardous materials assessments, geotechnical investigation, structural analysis and preliminary design of a new foundation, CentreVenture's release said.
