Gillingham Calls for Resetting and Renewing North Main
Scott Gillingham will spend Tuesday afternoon doorknocking businesses and residential properties along North Main Street as he outlines a new campaign commitment to develop a coordinated plan for the long-term renewal of the corridor.
"North Main has gone too long without sustained attention and a coordinated strategy," said Gillingham. "There are local businesses, tight-knit neighbourhoods, and tremendous history along this corridor. But there are also vacant properties, public safety concerns, and aging infrastructure. The result is that hundreds of historic Main Street properties are a net economic drain on the City, doing significant damage to Winnipeg’s health, safety and self-confidence in the process. We need a plan that addresses these challenges together."
With planned street and transit infrastructure work slated for the Main Street corridor over the coming years, Gillingham said the timing is right to reset North Main with a clear, strategic focus.
The initiative builds on recent progress Gillingham and City Council have made in revitalizing key central locations that were stalled for decades. Portage & Main reopened to pedestrians in 2025 for the first time since 1979, the redevelopment of Portage Place is underway, and downtown Winnipeg is seeing over $1.5 billion in active development alongside record housing approvals.
“For years, people looked at Portage & Main and Portage Place and wondered if anything was ever going to change — and then we made it happen,” Gillingham said.
The Downtown and the Exchange District both remain critical priorities for City Hall – but Gillingham argued the fate of all three neighborhoods is linked. “At least part of Downtown’s challenge is that the problems along North Main are gradually spreading south into nearby neighbourhoods,” he said. “Cleaning up and resetting North Main isn’t just North Main’s problem – it’s Winnipeg’s opportunity.”
While many social challenges along North Main are beyond the City’s jurisdiction, Gillingham said Winnipeg has policy tools that could help spark physical and economic change.
If re-elected as mayor, Gillingham will ask area councillors to lead initial consultations with residents, businesses and community organizations. That work would build toward a broader North Main summit involving other levels of government, Indigenous leaders, non-profit organizations and foundations, and neighbourhood businesses and residents early in the second half of his term.
The City would bring a draft action plan to that process, including consideration of:
Targeted public safety and security measures
Tax-increment financing to support redevelopment of vacant, deteriorating or underused properties
Targeted streetscape and public-realm improvements
Community events and other measures to bring more activity to the corridor
Increased cleaning and maintenance where needed
Gillingham said initial conversations with provincial leaders about the broader renwal of North Main have been encouraging.
“People from all areas of the city talk to me about North Main because they want to see something change,” Gillingham said. “It may take years to build real momentum on this corridor, but that’s all the more reason to start putting the pieces of a plan together now.”