Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 28/5/2018 (850 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The barriers that prevent foot traffic have not yet come down, but there’s a new look at Portage and Main.

There is no new building — it just looks like there is. That’s because Artis REIT has finished the $25-million replacement of the exterior curtain wall of its 30-storey 360 Main St. building.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS 'It’s important ‘to have the TD shield reappear on the Winnipeg skyline,’ says Simon Hong, district vice-president for branch banking in Manitoba.

To complete the transformation, the TD Bank logo is going up on all four sides at the top of the building, replacing Artis’s own corporate logo that had been there for the past few years.

But Frank Sherlock, executive vice-president of property management at Artis, said the company is glad to take its logo down in favour of TD.

"We have a new anchor tenant and building naming was part of the deal," he said. "We gave up our signs up top, but we’re happy to do that."

TD Bank is moving its main downtown branch from across the street at 201 Portage Ave. — a building that also used to feature the TD logo — to the concourse level of 360 Main St. It’s also moving its entire corporate banking and wealth management business into the building.

With a downtown corporate tenant shuffle underway caused by the upcoming completion of True North Square’s commercial building, TD jumped at the chance to take space in the newly refurbished 360 Main St.

Scotiabank, which has said it will be one of the anchor tenants at True North, will continue to have its Portage and Main branch in a building adjacent to 360 Main St., at the southwest corner of Portage and Main.

In addition to a new 5,000-square-foot-plus TD branch in the Winnipeg Square concourse opening today, about a month ago, TD also moved into 31,000 square feet on two floors in the tower.

Simon Hong, TD’s district vice-president for branch banking in Manitoba, said, "About a year ago, we had the opportunity to move locations and explore the feasibility of moving all of our downtown business — commercial banking and wealth management — not just the branch. After we looked into various factors involved in decisions such as this, it made a lot of sense for us to go ahead."

Even though Hong has only been in Winnipeg for a year, after a seven-year stint in North Carolina with TD’s U.S. operations, he’s aware there are still some people here who refer to 201 Portage Ave. as the TD building, its original name when it was completed in 1990.

That building has had a few other naming iterations over the years — for many years, it was called the Canwest building — and one of the reasons TD may have moved across the street to 360 Main St. is that for the past couple of years, 201 Portage Ave. has featured the logo of Canadian banking competitor RBC atop the building.

RBC has its main downtown branch at 220 Portage Ave., the building that now also houses Artis REIT’s head office.

Sherlock said the completion of the new glass curtain wall at 360 Main St. effectively makes it a new building.

"The skin is a major component of the building," Sherlock said. "It was the last piece of the puzzle. Everything else in that building has been replaced — the electrical, the heating, cooling, fire alarm, the lighting system. Now, it really is a new building. The cladding is expensive, but it had to be done. It will last 50 years."

The TD signage at top may or may not last 50 years, but for now, Hong said, it looks good for the bank in Winnipeg.

"It’s really important for us to have the TD shield reappear on the Winnipeg skyline," Hong said.

"It shows our customers and employees that TD is committed and we will continue to invest in the city of Winnipeg."

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca