In the Exchange District, a century-old pumping station hopes for an injection of new life

CentreVenture has a plan to inject new life into the 110-year-old James Avenue Pumping Station, one of the most troublesome structures in the downtown development agency's inventory of heritage buildings.

CentreVenture is working with a developer to preserve the 1906 pumping station as part of a mixed-use development that would see a pair of new buildings rise to the east and west and offices installed within the rafters within the original barn-like structure.

The plan calls for a four-storey addition to rise on one side and a six-storey addition to be placed at the other, creating enough new commercial, retail and residential space to make the project financially feasible, said Angela Mathieson, CentreVenture's president and chief executive officer.

The massive, machinery within the station, which was manufactured in the U.K. at the dawn of the 20th Century and used to fight fires in Winnipeg for 80 years, would remain in place as part of the proposal, Mathieson said.

The plan calls for the enormous gears, which look like visions from a steampunk novel, to be visible from the rafter-level offices as well as through new windows along James Avenue, which will be narrowed to become more pedestrian-friendly.

"It would be very hard to work around these pumps and that's been the main issue," she said. "Any redevelopment proposal has to maintain these (heritage) elements, and so it's not very usable."

The James Avenue Pumping Station was built in 1906 to draw water from the Red River and use it to fight fires in central Winnipeg. The water source was switched to the Winnipeg Aqueduct in 1919.

The station remained in use until 1986 but has sat vacant since it was decommissioned. Following the formation of CentreVenture in 1999, developers have come forward with plans to convert the building into everything from a brewpub to a farmer's market to a skyscraper towering 24 storeys above a "machine garden" that would have preserved the gears.

• 24-storey tower OK'd for old Winnipeg pumphouse

​​Mathieson said the new proposal will be more in line with the existing developments on the east side of the Exchange District and will fit into the scale of what is increasingly becoming a residential neighbourhood.

She concedes the disposal of the station has been a major headache for her agency, which infamously sold the building in 2001 and bought it back three years later at a loss.

"It is a derelict building. There's no two doubts about it. Getting this developed is really about completing this neighbourhood," Mathieson said.

While Mathieson would not disclose the identity of the developer, her agency's plans are far enough along for city council's property, heritage and downtown-development committee to consider narrowing James Avenue at a meeting scheduled for July 5.

Fort Rouge Coun. Jenny Gerbasi, who sits on the property committee and also chairs council's historical buildings committee, said she's pleased to learn a promising proposal is coming forward.

"There was some controversy about the size of the previous proposal," she said, referring to the failed skyscraper plan. "We've had many different proposals come forward. My hope is we could preserve the heritage, one way or another."

Mathieson said if all goes well, redevelopment work could begin this year.

"It really is an engineering marvel," she said. "It has a real industrial quality."

Janet Stewart, City Hall reporter Bartley Kives talk James Avenue Pumping Station

9 years ago

Duration 3:16

CentreVenture has a plan to inject new life into the 110-year-old James Avenue Pumping Station, one of the most troublesome structures in the downtown development agency's inventory of heritage buildings.