'A giant makeover': New owner promises to restore Times Change(d) building and others

The new owner of some of Winnipeg's oldest buildings says he's going to restore them to their former glory.

Last week, John Pollard purchasedthe historic Winnipeg Hotel and McDonald Building on Main Street, plus an empty lot between the two. The properties areright next to the Fortune Building on the corner of Main and St. Mary, which houses the Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club.

Pollard is the co-CEO of locally-based Pollard Banknote. Healready owned the Fortune Building, which he purchased earlier this year.

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Over the next several years, Pollard said he's going to revamp all of them.

"They've been painted over and windows are missing, but we think they have the potential to be beautiful," he said.

Work will start immediately on the Fortune and McDonald Buildings, Pollard said. The goal is to bring them back to what they looked like when they were built in the early1880s.

'A giant makeover'

"We can keep the Fortune Building virtually intact the way it is.We just have to significantly fix it up," he said. "It'll take all new electrical and you know mechanical systems, all that kind of stuff agiant make over."

Inside,the upper floors willbe offices, Pollard said, and lower levels will be transformed into new retail spaces.Times Change(d) isn't going anywhere, but it might expand.

"We'll open up those retail storefronts along Main Street to the original old big plate glass with awning look. If you find old, old pictures from back at the turn of the century, that's what it looked like," he said."We want to get some life opening on to Main Street there."

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The buildings haven't been updated much in their lifetimes, especially upstairs, Pollard said. To him, that's a plus, but it's going to create some challenges ahead.

"If you go into the Fortune Building today, it's kind of like walking back in time," he said. "It's almost like stepping back to 1882. It's virtually unaltered since then."

"It's great, but at the same time, the roof is literally caving in.The windows are all busted out, as people have seen from the street before," he said."There's a lot of hard work to be done and hopefully we won't lose our shirts on it, but it will be fun to do it."