Is the dream dead?

The Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation Department will not be saving downtown after all, much to the heartache of the cabal of the developers who were as giddy as teeny-boppers at a Jonas Brothers concert last month at the thought of Department moving downtown.

(The reason MIT gave for cancelling the move was that rental rates are too costly downtown--interesting coming from a Department currently in the St. James Industrial Park/Polo Park area.) Anyway, I think downtown will get along just fine without a few less Chrysler minivans parked in a garage from Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 4:30.

But to many, this is a setback. How many other government department and nationalized corporations are there that have not yet moved downtown? The list grows shorter and shorter, and still the Avenue building still sits empty.

Perhaps some government departments like working in suburban areas and don't want to work downtown--much the same way every downtown booster disappointed by this news likes living in the suburbs, and doesn't want to live anywhere remotely central?