The cities of Des Moines and Winnipeg rarely appear in the same sentence, unless you happen to be talking with Des Moines architect Greg Wattier or his client, auctioneer Mark Buleziuk.

Buleziuk heads a Canadian group that now owns two of Des Moines’ signature parking structures, the 750-car Partnership Building at Seventh and Locust streets and the 650-car former Keck Building at 500 Grand Ave.

Both were built in the 1980s, and both went into foreclosure during the last recession.

Now, new vision provided by Buleziuk and Wattier is creating new opportunities.

Gone are the large floor-plan demands of national and international tenants, replaced by the smaller space needs of single-proprietor entrepreneurs and other small businesses.

“The Winnipeg market and the Des Moines market have a lot of similarities” in that regard, said Wattier, who was hired by Buleziuk to reconfigure commercial space in both buildings.

Buleziuk’s first exposure to Iowa was at an auctioneering school in Mason City two decades ago. Since then, he’s returned many times, including two years ago when he wanted to look at parking garages, a specialty type of real estate that performs well for him and his partners in Winnipeg.

By then, the group had also pioneered a brand they call Space2work, which leases individual offices that share common areas and equipment.

In March 2011, the Canadians were the winning bidder in an online sale of the Partnership Building, paying $4.5 million for the block-long, nine-story building, which had sold seven years earlier for just under $10 million to DBSI, an Idaho investment group that declared bankruptcy in 2008.

The new owners hired Wattier to reconfigure about 18,000 square feet of space in the building, whose signature tenant is the Greater Des Moines Partnership.

The architect tore out a false ceiling at the end opposite the Partnership offices, creating a dramatic 20-foot-high space for common areas that include a waiting room, a conference room and a coffee bar.

All together, 32 single-occupancy offices, which rent for $675-$775 per month, and two double-occupancy rooms ($1,200 per month) were created. The price includes state-of-the-art office furniture, parking and use of the common areas, said Steve Stupka, who handles leasing for the building.

As work on the building progressed, Buleziuk’s group also put in a bid for the 500 Grand building, which had originally housed a movie theater and later the Downtown School. They got it for $3 million, half of what local developer Dan Stanbrough paid in 2005.

Build-outs at 500 Grand will depend on who the tenants are, but there is already one prospect for the large space that was previously occupied by the movie theater and later the school, Wattier said.

Meanwhile, the architect is also at work on a new design for the Partnership Building’s high-visibility, lower level food court, which has seen few changes since it opened in 1981 in what was then called the Locust Street Mall.

Buleziuk’s group is a nice fit for the Des Moines market, Wattier said. Not only are Winnipeg and Des Moines similar in size, demographics and economy – both are agricultural and financial centers – but Buleziuk’s Space2work concept has already shown it can meet the needs of small entrepreneurs in a back-to-the-basics economy.

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Des Moines lawyer Phyllis Pearson responded to my Aug. 3 column about creating golf trails in Iowa with this thought: “We should set up Iowa Golf Tours and market them to the Japanese who really have no access to affordable golf.” It’s a great idea. Does anybody have a spare Boeing 737 we can use for charter flights between Des Moines and Tokyo?