A GROUP OF YOUNG PEOPLE FIND A HOME IN A UNIQUE DOWNTOWN SPACE. 

A group of urban pioneers intends to help invigorate their neighbourhood, based out of an enclave in downtown Winnipeg that optimistic developers built on a plot of land that once wasted as a parking lot.

The tenants of the Webbsite condominiums—at 443 Webb Place, two blocks behind the Investors Group building—came to Winnipeg from cities all over Canada and from the other side of Europe. They gravitated seemingly by chance to this experimental project at the centre of a small but compelling pocket of downtown development.

“No one knows where it is,” says Lynnette Postuma. While calling the pizza place she repeats a familiar phrase to her neighbours gathered for dinner. Five Webbers met at this two-storey loft space this night to talk about living downtown and their homes at Webbsite, a place that lends itself to privacy, tucked between Booth College and the Raleigh Block of apartments, designed for friendly shelter right next to Ellice Avenue. Cabs, too, usually take a long time to arrive.

“Randovan won’t talk much because he’s hungry,” says Tatjana Radulovic, while her husband smirks to laugh with the others. They tease and joke, making easier conversation than most neighbours do as they tell about the day the people at Webbsite realized their community.

Lynnette remembers coming home one evening last summer about a week after moving there with husband Randall Boessenkool and seeing Randovan along the narrow lane that runs between Ellice and Webb Place outside their front doors. “We started chatting and then Randall got home and joined in and then Patrick (Munoz) came along…” Within an hour, six of them decided to walk across the bridge to Osborne Village together. Now, they hang out once or twice a week and joke about getting IKEA or Tanqueray No. Ten as a Webbsite sponsor.  

“We even had Christmas dinner here together,” says Lynnette, showing the front corner of the living space where she and Randall raised a festive tree that nearly touched the 18-foot ceiling.

“It’s not that big a place, though—in five minutes you see all we own,” says Randall, climbing the aluminum-railed stairway to the second floor mezzanine. “The only thing I might change is having a place to put my bikes,” says Randall, explaining the five bicycles hanging off the wall at the top of the stairs. The units came bare, except for kitchen cabinetry and appliances from IKEA. Lynette and Randall put modular storage units beside the kitchen and upstairs in a home office area that looks out over the vast living room. Across the space, two huge windows, one set above the other, give a bright view of blue sky over the treed courtyard and old brick of the renovated heritage apartment block next door. In that light, storage space seems overrated.

A few of them admit to the occasional drive to a big box store out in the suburbs, but they all appreciate having essentials of food and entertainment close enough to make walking an alternative. “People will ask how I live here,” says Tatjana, counting theatre venues, galleries, movies, clubs and a grocery store as nearby attractions. “They ask ‘Where do you find anything in downtown?’ and I ask them if they can walk to the grocery store in 10 minutes. I can. Everything I need is 20 minutes away.”

Massive planning

Architect Sasa Radulovic has pictures of the day his brother Randovan met all the neighbours. Sasa worked on the plans for Webbsite for Cohlmeyer Architects, before forming a separate firm, 5468796, with Webbsite co-planner Johanna Hurme. Sasa happened to be there working that night. “So they all went out for the night and I had to stay there taking pictures, but it was amazing to capture that happening,” he says, in his Albert Street office, showing the shots.

He says that massing seven condo units together on a 130-foot by 50-foot lot challenged the planners most. A needed lane for vehicle traffic and space for a sidewalk along the front doors narrowed the lot to about 25 feet wide.

Sasa displays a set of wooden blocks he made to show potential buyers how the designers developed four “flex-spaces” spread between the seven units. The blocks nestle in beside each other like the bottom row in a game of Tetris. Sasa shows how the block representing Lynnette and Randall’s two-storey place sits mostly on top of a piece jutting out of the suite next door. “They could have three storeys if they took that space, but the tenant next door took it first. So, inside Lynnette and Randall’s suite, Patrick’s dining room sits under their main floor and on the other side of a wall down the flight of stairs to their ground-level front door.

Building a neighbourhood

This was the first newly constructed condominium in downtown Winnipeg,” says developer Jeff Badger, who worked with the North Portage Development Corporation (NPDC) to turn a former 16-space parking lot into the Webbsite project. “This is a showpiece for the city,” he says.

Badger explains that the Webbsite development marked a later step in ongoing work to rejuvenate the area around little Webb Place—a process led by the NPDC, an organization which Badger calls “a quasi-public agency, responsible for showing what benefit can come from careful development downtown.” The former Public Press Building on Vaughan Street had already been renovated for the Salvation Army College before architect David Penner designed the glassy modern addition to Isbister School facing Colony Street.

“I really liked Penner’s work on the Isbister School addition,” says NPDC CEO Jim August, remembering he wanted to see another modern-looking building to enhance the residential feel of the area.

“Before the condominiums, there was just a parking lot there,” says August. He admits the 16 spaces may have been handy for people working in the area, “but it was pretty rough,” he adds. “It seemed like a great spot for people to go and drink in.”

With the blighted parking lot filled in by affordable condominiums, the NPDC proceeded to help developer Doug Sneath purchase and renovate the Raleigh Block of apartments at Vaughan and Ellice last year. They also played a part in the recent Hostelling International (HI) takeover of the Gordon Downtowner Motor Hotel (where the Webbers now visit the attached Lo Bar a block away from home.) Future NPDC projects in the discussion stage include more condominium units to increase the number of people living close by Webb Place.

“It’s such a nice thing to see a community developing there,” says August, describing one idea to put condo units atop the HI Winnipeg Downtowner. Another proposal sees condominium units atop Portage Place, as the mall’s original plan called for.
The friends at Webbsite count the Downtowner redevelopment as the best recent work, and imagine that the Hydro Tower opening will encourage stores nearby to stay open longer and get more new people used to being downtown.

They claim to be very different people, but they know their homes reflect a particular ethos. Patrick remembers people coming to see his place soon after he moved in. He says that some visitors looking at the newly-polished concrete underfoot in his foyer wondered when the floors were going in. But it’s more than a penchant for polished concrete floors or shining exposed ductwork that brings this together.

“I guess we all have similar ideas about downtown life and life in general,” says Patrick, to a round of nods form his neighbours. “There’s nowhere to put five cases of toilet paper, but it’s kind of liberating to not have the opportunity.”