Polo Park housing development to be on hold due to multiple issues: developer

A cap on international students in Canada is having an impact on a Winnipeg housing development and universities. CTV’s Harrison Shin explains.

A housing development near Polo Park is now on hold due to a shifting situation, according to the developer.

The development plan was supposed to be built by 2033—but the developer, Shindico, now says it is on hold due to multiple reasons, such as the international student cap.

“You’re running into issues where construction costs are staying very high, you’re having less immigration—including temporary foreign workers and students—and you’re having higher interest rates,” said Justin Zarnowski, general counsel for Shindico.

“We’ve run into a myriad of issues, where the building was more expensive. We weren’t as confident that we were going to be able to fill it, and the debt was likely going to be more expensive than we thought.

“That forced us to go back to the drawing board and say ‘is there a plan here for this important site to Winnipeg, that we can be confident it will generate a return and be a successful development?’”

The location works for students getting to universities—and that is the reason why Shindico included international students as one of the target groups.

“One of the nice things about Polo Park is it happens to be on a very convenient bus route to the University of Winnipeg. It’s one bus to the University of Manitoba, and that connection is really desirable—people don’t like to take two buses,” Zarnowski explained.

Starting in 2024, the federal government capped the number of international students allowed to study in Canada. This is now starting to show not just at this planned development site, but also at Manitoba’s universities.

“It wasn’t too impactful on the enrolment for last fall. But the number of first-year students has been reduced, and it is certainly reduced for this coming fall,” said Colin Russell, registrar for the University of Winnipeg.

“Because the international student tuition is higher, it does comprise a bigger portion per capita of the tuition revenue. That has resulted in a significant hit to our budget.”

The University of Manitoba is also noticing the hit.

“In September 2024, we saw a 30 per cent decrease in new international student enrolment and a close to five per cent decrease in our overall international student population,” Greg Smith, vice-provost of academic planning and programs for the University of Manitoba said in a statement.

“This year, we’ve also seen a noticeable decrease in the total number of international applications for the coming fall term, and the problem is compounded by permit processing delays.

“At this time, we are very concerned about how many eligible applicants will receive their study permits in time to begin their studies before Labour Day.”

Zarnowski added that this is a temporary hold and the site will be developed; the questions are ‘what’ and ‘when.’

“We’ll end up doing something there. The site is just so valuable that if it sits empty for another 10 years, it just isn’t tenable.”