Redevelopment Threatening Canada's "Pyramids on the Prairies"?

Winnipeg's exchange District, which boasts North America's largest intact collection of historic warehouses, was declared a National Historic Site in 1997. Now the Heritage Canada Foundation is warning that the District is under threat from redevelopment.

"[Winnipeg's] warehouse district -- including the Exchange District National Historic Site -- is in danger of being paved into parkades and overtaken by new buildings. That's the warning from the national non-profit organization Heritage Canada Foundation, which placed the warehouse district in its sixth annual Top Ten Endangered Places list on Wednesday."

The Foundations singled out for criticism the decision by the CentreVenture redevelopment agency to permit the demolition of a vacant building to make way for the new headquarters of the regional health authority. The article goes on:

"But Ross McGowan, executive director of CentreVenture, the city's property development agency, calls the foundation's list 'irresponsible and inaccurate.' The Main Street buildings demolished for construction of a new Winnipeg Regional Health Authority clinic and offices were vacant for 20 years, he said. 'Anyone, including Heritage Canada Foundation, could have purchased them for $1 and no one ever did.'"