Platial | Who and What's Nearby
Platial | Who and What's Nearby
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In 1904, work began on a new department store on Portage Avenue between Donald and Hargrave Streets. This would be the first western expansion of the Timothy Eaton's department store empire. When it opened a year later, Eaton's store changed the course of downtown development; shifting retail away from Main Street, and to Portage Avenue.
The T. Eaton company became an important institution in Winnipeg, and thier store on Portage was hugely popular with shoppers until well into the 1970's. However, the gradual de-urbanization of Winnipeg which began after World War II, caught up to the old department store, and traffic, sales, and active floor space declined.
Meanwhile, the company as a whole began to run into financial difficulties and finally went out of business in 1999, and the lights at the department store that defined Portage Avenue finally went out for the last time.
The store sat vacant for three years, until it was demolished (despite valliant and credible efforts to save it) to make way for an arena, the MTS Centre. While the MTS Centre has proven to be successful in its own right, it has thus far failed to uplift the ever-declining Portage Avenue, which lost a defining physical presence in the Eaton's store.
In defence of the demoltion, the argument is often made that the store would still be standing vacant today were it not for the MTS Centre. On a formerly grand retail avenue so destroyed by megaprojects, its vacant windows would have fit right in.
In 1904, work began on a new department store on Portage Avenue between Donald and Hargrave Streets. This would be the first western expansion of the Timothy Eaton's department store empire. When it opened a year later, Eaton's store changed the course of downtown development; shifting retail away from Main Street, and to Portage Avenue.
The T. Eaton company became an important institution in Winnipeg, and thier store on Portage was hugely popular with shoppers until well into the 1970's. However, the gradual de-urbanization of Winnipeg which began after World War II, caught up to the old department store, and traffic, sales, and active floor space declined.
Meanwhile, the company as a whole began to run into financial difficulties and finally went out of business in 1999, and the lights at the department store that defined Portage Avenue finally went out for the last time.
The store sat vacant for three years, until it was demolished (despite valliant and credible efforts to save it) to make way for an arena, the MTS Centre. While the MTS Centre has proven to be successful in its own right, it has thus far failed to uplift the ever-declining Portage Avenue, which lost a defining physical presence in the Eaton's store.
In defence of the demoltion, the argument is often made that the store would still be standing vacant today were it not for the MTS Centre. On a formerly grand retail avenue so destroyed by megaprojects, its vacant windows would have fit right in.
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