Grocery store to anchor retail portion of water tower district project

More details about the Water Tower District Plan for the St. Boniface neighbourhood have been released. CTV’s Jeff Keele explains.

Winnipeg developer Shindico Realty Inc. has acquired 14.34 acres of the Water Tower District project to develop a retail component, and a grocery store will be the anchor tenant.

The former meat plant in St. Boniface was demolished in 2001 and has been vacant ever since. The new retail development will include restaurants, drive-thrus, and a 30,000- to 40,000-square-foot grocery store.

Shindico CEO Sandy Shildleman said they’re reaching out to the big chains like Safeway, Co-op, Sobeys, and Loblaws.

“There’s enough market share, and there hasn’t been a new grocery store or new retail in the area for a long, long, long time,” he said.

The 165-acre property, at the corner of Marion St. and Archibald St., will also include hundreds of residential units, offices, industrial lots, and park space, so customers for the retailers, are built in.

Joe Seesahai owns Autocraft, an autobody shop right near the intersection and he said traffic is already a concern in the area, especially when trains cross.

“With the residential across the street, it’s going to make it a crazy corner,” Seesahai said. “It’s very difficult, you know, turning into the lot here; most of the time we have to ask them to go to the back.”

He said he would like to see an underpass constructed and the street widened, but that plan was abandoned by the city under former mayor Brian Bowman due to the massive price tag.

Shindleman said the development won’t have a major impact on traffic, adding there will be more than one entrance and exit to the site.

“Traffic studies have been done; people instead of driving by will drive in,” he said.