AnX, University of Winnipeg

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Built in 1963-64, the former Mall Centre was a significant development for its day. The $4.5 million dollar project included a seven-storey office building, a main floor retail mall, a 300 car parkade and a new intercity bus depot. The bus depot opened in June 1964 and the restaurant, originally the Dutch Treat Cafeteria and later a Salisbury House, opened soon after. The existing Mall Hotel at Portage Avenue and Colony Street was renovated and connected to the new structure. The hotel was demolished in 1984 to make way for the current hotel, a Holiday Inn.

Theodore Matoff, a University of Manitoba architecture professor at the time, proclaimed that the structure represented Winnipeg’s first attempt at “designing space for our climate”. The building was constructed with a reinforced concrete frame, concrete slab floors and roofs, and concrete block walls. The office block and podium are faced with Tyndall stone, black granite and white marble highlights, and an exposed concrete finish.

The bus depot closed in 2008 and in 2009 the University of Winnipeg purchased the complex. Renovations for use as a Winnipeg Transit interchange, and commercial and university office and retail space, encompassed the redesign of the entire main floor. The building now houses classrooms, retail and services as well as the University bookstore.