The new tenants of the Neechi Commons building in Winnipeg will take possession on Monday, and plans are already being made for what the space will look like and how it will serve the community.
On Wednesday, the Southeast Resource Development Council (SERDC) announced it had purchased the Main Street building from Assiniboine Credit Union and will lease it to Shawenim Abinooji, a First Nations-led non-profit organization.
Shawenim Abinooji works with foster children and their families from eight First Nations in southeastern Manitoba.
They currently operate from four different offices near the Neechi Commons building, which will now serve as their centralized home, which executive director Victoria Fisher says will make their services more accessible to those in need. .
“We want to provide an environment for our staff that includes collaboration across programs and supports a more child- and family-centered approach to service delivery,” Fisher said.
The space was previously occupied by the Neechi Commons cooperative, which operated a grocery store, restaurant and gallery. It closed in 2018 due to mounting debt.
Part of Shawenim Abinooji’s work includes supporting young people in the transition from health care by providing them with housing at their 24-unit Alfred Street complex.
Plans are in the works for what the Neechi Commons building on Winnipeg’s Main Street will look like and serve the community. (Trevor Brine/CBC)
One of the ways they support children and families who have not aged out of foster care is by offering alternative classrooms, which can accommodate students as they navigate major life changes.
“We want to make sure that people who are in foster care have that support to continue to access their education even if they move from one home to another in the middle of the school year,” Fisher said.
Wins Bridgman, co-principal of Bridgman Collaborative Architecture, said the firm was asked to help reimagine the building for its new use a decade after it created the structure’s design when it went up.
Bridgman said some elements of the redesign will be similar to what the company did with the original building, such as representing what the organization is about on the outside. When the Neechi Commons building went up, there were signs that included words and phrases like “bannock” and “wild rice.”
“So everybody that walked through the building really knew what the purpose of the building was. It had a fun quality to it,” Bridgman said.
“We hope, with signage … to be able to provide the same kind of representation of the building.”
The former Neechi Commons building at the corner of Main Street and Euclid Avenue in Winnipeg is shown in a July 27, 2022 photo. (Trevor Brine/CBC)
There will also be some new elements, such as a spiritual center that people see right when they enter. It will be made of wood, have a skylight and will be “almost tipi-shaped from the inside,” he said.
“It will be a place for people to gather, think and be together,” he said.
The redesign also came about after extensive consultation with staff, Bridgman said.
“We had a lot of interviews with staff to find out what their needs were and talk and find out what the organization meant to them and how they can imagine working together,” he said.
Wins Bridgman is the co-principal of Bridgman Collaborative Architecture, the firm that created the design of the original Neechi Commons building. (Trevor Brine/CBC)
“It always starts with: what is our collective vision?
“And then carry [that] together to say, what are the opportunities that the building offers and the opportunities that the community has? So vision is a long process and a wonderful process of discovery.”
LOOK | The First Nations-led non-profit organization has big plans for the Neechi Commons space:
New tenants in Winnipeg’s Neechi Commons building to move in
First Nations-led non-profit Shawenim Abinooji says he has big plans to renovate the space.