Current Projects
633 Wellington Crescent
PFNRET purchased this project on July 6, 2022, for $350,000. The property consisted of 470 feet +/- of street frontage on 2.8 acres located at 611 – 633 Wellington Crescent in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The old Shriners hospital/Provincial rehabilitation centre and a vacant house built in the 1910’s was situated on the site.
The site had 8 underlying lots on one City title. The lots were narrow and varying in depth and the site had significant riverbank stabilization concerns which would affect the redevelopment of the site. Essentially the riverbank at that location was not stable, there had been loss of ground near the river’s edge, and more land was in danger of falling into the river unless remedial action was taken to stabilize the riverbank preventing further erosion into the river.
A decision was made by the Trustees to redevelop the site and put it up for sale after a review of all the strategic options available related to the site. Redevelopment activities included engineering reports on riverbank assessment, monitoring and rehabilitation options, demolition work, capping existing utilities and other activities to create a vacant site for the new owner.
The site was sold for $2.8M and the Trust made a profit of $ 1,830,000 over a time period of 8 months. This is a return of over 500% in less than one year.
2511 MacGregor Farm Rd
(The Meadows)
PFNRET purchased the former Meadows golf course in August 2021. The Meadows is a 183 acres contiguous piece of land located within the RM of East St. Paul east of Highway #59 and north of the Perimeter Highway. It is rare to be able to buy such large tracts of contiguous parcels of land located so close to the city of Winnipeg and PFNRET saw this as an opportunity to create significant financial value over time.
The intent is to develop the site into a complete community offering a wide variety of single and multi-family residential dwellings as well as small-scale commercial development. Significant internal planning and design work has been done to help define the vision of a complete community for this site. Initial guidelines have been based on Plan 2050 which is a document that can be used as a basis for density targets and other amenities required in the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region.
PFNRET sees the Meadows project as a vehicle to work with other partners for economic reconciliation and to provide much needed housing options to help alleviate Canada’s national housing crisis. This complete community will contain all types of housing typologies and will foster small scale commercial to offer residents the range of services they require without having to leave their community.
PFNRET envisions that it will retain ownership of a sizeable portion of the multifamily units to provide long term stable cash flows and sell the single family lots to the development community.
Currently the RM of East St. Paul has announced that a secondary planning process will begin for all lands east of Highway #59 and north of the Perimeter Highway which includes the Meadows lands. This is a great opportunity for PFNRET as a stakeholder to put forward its ideas and plans for a complete community that will help alleviate the shortage of housing which exists in Canada today. PFNRET has created a vision for the site and will be working to ensure this vision is included in the secondary planning process.
Future announcements will be made after the secondary planning process is complete and a development application is submitted sometime in 2024.
PFNRET looks forward to working with the development community and the Federal and Provincial governments, their agencies, and departments to ensure this project is a success for our community. Ongoing discussions have been had with the Mayor and Council of East St. Paul related to the desires of PFNRET to develop the land and we look forward to continuing these discussions in the future.
PFNRET Private Utility & Geothermal System
PFNRET Private Utility & Geothermal System
One of the priorities of the Trust is to be at the forefront of green energy solutions and climate change to provide energy without the planet-warming effects of fossil fuels. We as Indigenous peoples are stewards of the land which includes water resources. Owning our own private utility and geothermal system let us create income and profit for our community from water which is a resource we treasure as much as we value land. We have never ceded our rights to water and the ability to contribute our own capital towards the sustainable use of this resource for the financial benefit of our community is something of which we are proud of.
PFNRET Private Utility
When it was discovered that the RM of East St. Paul required additional servicing capacity to accommodate any future developments, PFNRET saw this as an opportunity to create their own utility. PFNRET has spent significant time and resources on exploring the opportunity of designing, building and owning a private utility.
The intent is to build a water treatment plant and a wastewater treatment plant at the Meadows site to supply potable water and wastewater services to the development. Sufficient water capacity exists within East St. Paul that can supply the needs of the entire community if the well(s) are located to maximize the aquifers capacity. An outfall for wastewater will be required on the Red River just north of the Perimeter Highway.
Preliminary work has confirmed that a private utility can be operated at a profit at current rates being charged within the Province and provide a full range of services to the development. The utility would fall under the supervision of the Public Utilities Board (PUB) once completed and serving customers.
PFNRET has been working with the Provincial government to obtain the approvals necessary to allow a private utility to be built on the Meadows site. Initial approvals include a groundwater exploration permit (GEP) for water wells for not only the private utility but also for a geothermal utility. Design work is ongoing for the private utility.
Future work will be required with the appropriate Provincial department’s involvement to obtain all necessary approvals for the utility.
Geothermal System
A geothermal system is planned to provide heating and cooling services to the Meadows site. Initial goals call for the multifamily portion of the site to be heated and cooled by geothermal services and consideration is being given to the single-family residential development as well.
The geothermal system will be an open loop system using Manitoba’s abundant aquifer as a source of the energy to be supplied to the dwelling units at the Meadows. An open loop system essentially is an earth loop that uses the energy contained in the water from the ground. In this case a well is drilled to provide the energy for heating and cooling. The water is pumped from the well through a heat exchanger coil and then returned to the earth. A Geothermal Open Loop System loses no water during this process. All the water removed is returned to the aquifer. The water on a seasonal basis is slightly heated or cooled as it is being returned to the aquifer.
In the open loop system, the supply well pumps groundwater from the aquifer and into the main supply line. The supply line runs through the site and is branched to each individual building’s respective mechanical room. This supply line feeds ground water throughout the site and is tied to a heat exchanger (each building on site contains a heat exchanger) and then after the water passes through the heat exchanger is discharged to the main return line. The return line feeds into the return wells and deposits the water back into the aquifer.
Each individual heat exchanger removes energy from the water passing through it and transfers that energy to another refrigerant loop that runs throughout each building. This closed building loop feeds a heat pump in each suite with its tempered water/glycol mixture that ultimately provides the required heating or cooling for each suite.
Stewards of the land and Green Energy
Both projects (Private Utility & Geothermal System) offer PFNRET the opportunity to be stewards of a precious resource such as water and to also be at the forefront of green energy and play a role in helping to provide solutions to the climate crisis.
These projects create long-term stable cash flows that are not significantly influenced by economics or financial market conditions. They are relatively low return but more importantly low risk stable sources of annual cash for our community.
PFNRET looks forward to working with Premier Kinew and the new Provincial government on these two exciting projects as we seek to advance these opportunities for economic independence by creating own source revenues. Governments are looking to the private sector for champions of this transition to a green economy and PFNRET is willing to be a part of this change.
Meadows Daycare Project
In 2022 the Provincial government awarded PFNRET one of the daycare locations funded by the joint Federal/Provincial plan to provide access to families requiring daycare services.
The daycare will be a 74-person facility that will help provide an important amenity to families living in the Meadows development and for the entire RM of East St. Paul. It will be located in the northwest corner of the site, with access from McGregor Farm Road.
The Provincial government will pay the costs to construct the daycare facility and turn over ownership of the buildings and surrounding site improvements to PFNRET. PFNRET will provide the facility rent free to an approved daycare operator for a period of 15 years after which rent paid by the daycare operator will flow to PFNRET.
PFNRET Is not playing an active role in the design or construction of the daycare project as the Province is responsible for those aspects of the project. Pretium Projects Ltd. is the project manager chosen by the Province for the daycare project and handles all design and construction related activities. We look forward to continuing to work with Pretium and the other consulting professionals on this exciting project.
This is another example of PFNRET working with government and the private sector to grow the asset base of our community with advantageous financial terms to the community.
