The Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce has relocated its office to a revamped 10,000-square-foot space in the city’s downtown core.

The new digs are located in the former Scotiabank building at 200 Portage Avenue. The low-rise building sits at the corner of Portage and Main, which ranks among Canada’s iconic intersections due to its status as one of the country’s first business centres.

“We are at the corner of Portage and Main, the city’s intersection,” Loren Remillard, the chamber’s president and CEO, told the Winnipeg Free Press. “We want our office to be the business community’s intersection.”

The chamber was previously located just down the street in the Paris building at 259 Portage.

The chamber’s new premises were designed by Rodych Integrated Design and constructed by Winnipeg Building and Decorating. According to the Free Press, the office includes a “good sized mezzanine-level conference room with an adjacent vault/kitchen.”

The space also contains “nooks and crannies throughout, providing casual meeting and work spaces,” and three 10-foot-high colourful paintings by Indigenous artist Dee Barsy, the Free Press reported.

Chamber members can drop in to work at designated areas. Members can also book offices and other spaces in the location intended to be more modern than its predecessors, according to the report.

“We may be 151 years old but we didn’t want the offices to look like that,” Remillard told the Free Press.

“This is not your grandparents’ chamber of commerce.”

Inland port developer CentrePort Canada is co-locating space with the chamber, as the company did at 259 Portage. Meanwhile, World Trade Centre Winnipeg and the Manitoba Environmental Industries Association are sharing space with the chamber for the first time.

The chamber’s move comes as it and many other entities, particularly Indigenous groups such as the Manitoba Métis Federation and Southern Chiefs’ Organization, are striving to revitalize Winnipeg’s downtown.

The effort has sparked numerous commercial real estate projects, particularly office redevelopments.

“We did not consider any other part of the city,” Remillard, a strong advocate for downtown revitalization, told the Free Press.

In a press release announcing the planned move in 2023, he said the chamber wanted to “double-down” on its “unwavering commitment to downtown – for the next 150 years and beyond.”

While seeking to reignite the core, the chamber leased the new space to attract people downtown outside of office hours.

“The idea was to make it a destination point,” Remillard told the Free Press. “We want to be part of the solution for downtown.”

Rendering: Courtesy of Cindy Rodych of Rodych Integrated Design/Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce