Exchange District

The Exchange District is a National Historic Site of Canada in the downtown area of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Just one block north of Portage and Main, the Exchange District comprises twenty city blocks and approximately 150 heritage buildings, and it is known for its intact early 20th century collection of warehouses, financial institutions, and early terracotta-clad skyscrapers.

The Exchange is home to the Manitoba Museum as well as the Planetarium and a Science Gallery. The Exchange District spans two distinct areas, the East Exchange and the West Exchange. The east Exchange area is located between the Disraeli Freeway, Waterfront Drive, William Stephenson Way, and Main Street, and the West Exchange is bounded by Adelaide Street, Ross Avenue, Notre Dame Avenue, and Main Street.

The Exchange District’s name originates from the Winnipeg Grain Exchange, the former centre of the grain industry in Canada, as well as other commodity exchanges that developed in Winnipeg between 1881–1918, some of which are still active today. (see Winnipeg Commodity Exchange.)

Winnipeg was one of the fastest-growing cities in North America around the turn of the 20th century. The city became known as the Chicago of the North. Much of Winnipeg’s remaining architecture of the late 1800s and early 1900s is heavily influenced by the Chicago style. By 1911, Winnipeg had become the third largest city in Canada. At the time it had more than two dozen rail lines converging near the city centre, along with over 200 wholesale businesses.

World War I and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 slowed Winnipeg's growth, as there was a new route for shipping goods from Eastern Canada and Europe to Western Canada and from East Asia to the larger markets on the Eastern seaboard. As wholesale operations began to open in other Western Canadian cities, such as Edmonton, Moose Jaw, and Regina, Winnipeg's importance as a wholesale centre declined in the 1910s and 1920s. By the 1940s, many of the warehouses in the Exchange District had been converted into uses related to the garment trade.

As Winnipeg began to experience growth in the years following World War II, much of Winnipeg’s downtown development shifted to the area of downtown south of Portage Avenue, particularly along Broadway and on towards Osborne Village. The lack of new development, mixed with the existing demand for inexpensive wholesaling and manufacturing space, left the Exchange District largely intact. As a result, Winnipeg today has one of the most historically intact early 20th century commercial districts in North America.

In the early 1980s the streetscaping in the area was improved with the creation of wider sidewalks, historically appropriate street furniture, lighting, and decorative paving patterns and materials.

On September 27, 1997, the Winnipeg Exchange District was declared a National Historic Site by then-federal Minister of Canadian Heritage, Sheila Copps.