New owners plan to transform inner-city Winnipeg hotel into Indigenous wellness centre | CBC News

A business group that includes members of a northern Manitoba First Nation has taken over the Balmoral Hotel, in a bid to transform the central Winnipeg hotel into a wellness centre.

“This is a positive opportunity, where we had a window of opportunity to take part in such initiatives and we capitalized on that,” said David Muswaggon, a member of Pimicikamak Okimawin’s executive council responsible for urban economic development.

Muswaggon, Winnipeg entrepreneur Kam Khaira and psychiatrist Dr. Antonio Paletta are leading the project to redevelop the 44-room hotel, which will be renamed the Pimicikamak Wellness Centre. They took possession of the property at at 621 Balmoral St., at the corner of Cumberland Avenue, on Nov. 1.

They plan to turn the beer vendor currently operating on the property into a walk-in clinic. A drop-in centre offering meals and Indigenous-focused programming will take over the basement space that once operated as a bar and strip club.

Khaira and Paletta approached Pimicikamak about a month ago with the idea of forming a partnership. Muswaggon says they had worked together on past projects, including a medical boarding home on Portage Avenue, and wanted to do something to serve people coming to the city for medical treatment and entertainment events.

“Some business partners took it upon themselves to reach out to Native communities because they are probably the biggest clientele in the medical industry, because our communities are sick communities,” Muswaggon said.

“A lot of patients come in and out of these communities, whether it’s through medevacs [or] regular appointments. So they need places to stay, they need places to be fed, and they need to be housed and they need to be transported.”

The hotel will also have space for Pimicikamak’s transportation agency. There are also plans for a daycare and a 28-unit apartment project in a nearby building, Muswaggon said.

The transformation is set to be complete by the end of 2024, but it won’t take that long for some parts of the plan to begin operating.

The drop-in meal program provided by the non-profit 1JustCity plans to open its new West End location in the hotel in January.

Program co-ordinator Josh Ward says 1JustCity, which serves around 150 people per day through its drop-in meal program, had outgrown its former location in the West End Commons building on St. Matthews Avenue, and has been temporarily working out of the Crossways in Common building on Broadway and Furby Street.

“This location is in a different corner of the West End than where we were located previously, and it’s also going to give us a chance to reach out into some other neighbourhoods that are a bit more underserved,” Ward said.

“Our reach is expanding greatly.”

The new owners plan to completely renovate the building, but Muswaggon says none of the current residents will be forced out.

“No one’s being displaced because of this move, and they will continue to stay here for however long they need to,” he said.

A City of Winnipeg property assessment notice estimates the property value at $3.2 million.