New Winnipeg police station would relocate Indigenous non-profit to new offices

The entrance to 100 Sinclair St. is cramped, but somehow you're still greeted by hundreds of smiling faces.

"It's kind of cool to see the legacy of some of the work you've been doing for all the years," said Trevor LaForte, executive director for the Winnipeg Aboriginal Sport Achievement Centre (WASAC). He's gazing at photos of young employees the non-profit has hired since it started in 1999.

La Forte hopes the legacy lives on, even though the building at 100 Sinclair St. may not.

The building, the nearby outdoor rink and garden boxes are all slated to be torn down to make room for a new Winnipeg police station.

The proposed project will take up 4.9 acres of the Old Ex Grounds. It will replace the decrepit police station at 266 Hartford Ave., which the service has said is too small and outdated.

WASAC has used 100 Sinclair St. as its office and storage space for 13 years. The non-profit hires more than 100 young people every year to run and co-ordinate sport and leadership camps and programs. About 4,000 kids participate every year, many Indigenous and many from Winnipeg's North End neighbourhoods.

If the building gets demolished, WASAC won't be displaced. As part of the deal, the city would spend $5.9 million from a provincial fund to renovate the front part of the Old Ex Arena — including new offices for the non-profit.

"We are happy to stay here. This has been our home for a long time. It's right in the community. It's familiar to a lot of the kids that work with us," said LaForte.

"When we looked at the new option, that would be something of an upgrade for us, and would allow us a little more stability," he said. LaForte said the old building needed upgrades and repairs over the years, and the move would allow WASAC to focus its budget on programming rather than fixes.

The police station project garnered public backlash for years, and residents voiced concerns that past blueprints took up too much green space. LaForte said he and his team were supportive of community consultations and that they were happy to stay at 100 Sinclair St. if the plan didn't go through.

"What we didn't want is to get caught in the middle," said LaForte.

LaForte said WASAC has a lease agreement with the city for 100 Sinclair St., and they'd enter a similar agreement for the new space. He said city staff and police have kept his organization up to date with any changes to the proposed plans. He said his staff will be able to give their input on what their new offices need, should the plan go through.

One thing he's certain will go in the possible new digs is a similar entryway – a space full of smiling faces of WASAC's past.

"This is something that we're very proud of."

'Compromising' North End: councillor

While area Coun. Ross Eadie (Mynarski) believes the old police station on Hartford does need to be replaced, he's not happy with where it's going.

"WASAC gets a new building. That's good. That's really important," said Eadie.

"It's not just about WASAC. [The city is] taking five acres of green recreation space."

Eadie said he was initially told by city staff that the $25.7 million station would take up less than four acres. He said the city also isn't following its own policy for the land dedication reserve.

For projects that don't provide open, public space, city policy requires the developer to pay cash that ends up in a fund dedicated specifically for parks, recreation and community use. Though the city isn't selling the land, city staff say rezoning greenspace for another use triggered the policy.

The initial motion to rezone the area for the police station required the developer to pay 10 per cent of the appraised value of the development. In this case, the developer would be the Winnipeg Police Service.

Eadie requested that money specifically be deposited into the surrounding three wards' funds instead of spread out among all of them.

Instead, the executive policy committee decided to scrap the cash payment completely. They tabled a new motion that would put the money from the sale of the old police station directly into Eadie's ward's greenspace and parks fund.

But Eadie isn't satisfied, saying other councillors are actually "discriminating" against his and surrounding neighbourhoods.

"We're compromising the whole North End," he said.

Councillors on EPC said there is no room in the police station project's budget to pay any extra costs, and that the project needed to get underway soon.

Council will make the final call on whether or not the rezoning — and subsequently the police station — will go through on Thursday.