Portage Place Mall’s 2024 Renovation – A 360° Tour Filmed with Insta360 X4 🏬🎥

gear4greatness
Feb 12, 2025
4 min read

Updated: Nov 17, 2025

Last updated: August 2025

Portage Place Mall’s 2024 Renovation – A 360° Tour Filmed with Insta360 X4 🏬🎥

Walking into Portage Place after the 2024 renovation felt like stepping into a completely different version of Winnipeg — almost like the mall had finally taken a deep breath after years of being stuck in time. I remember the exact moment the doors opened and that rush of cool air hit me; it carried a brightness that wasn’t there before, the kind that makes you glance upward almost instinctively. The lighting felt cleaner, softer, almost cinematic. The whole place looked wider too, like someone had pulled the walls back and given the mall room to breathe. I brought the Insta360 X4 with me because I wanted to capture that sense of renewal — the feeling of seeing a familiar place come back to life. 🎥🏙️✨

As I walked deeper inside, the changes unfolded piece by piece. New floors with subtle reflections, modern storefronts that popped with clean lines, open seating areas that actually felt inviting instead of something you rushed past. I held the X4 out on the invisible selfie stick and let it drift through the space, almost like it was floating on its own. The stabilization smoothed out each step, and I could feel myself settling into a groove — walking slow enough to let the scene tell its story. The mall felt brighter not just in color, but in mood. There was this hum of possibility, like people might actually start gathering here again, using it as a meeting place the way malls used to be. 💭🌄

I wandered down the central corridor, noticing how the renovated lighting gave everything a softer texture. Even the echoes sounded different — less hollow, more warm. Small groups of people sat in the new seating areas, chatting, scrolling, taking a break from the cold outside. Seeing that made me smile a bit. A mall is more than stores; it’s supposed to be a space where life moves slowly for a few minutes, where you can breathe, watch people, reset. I lifted the X4 above my head, letting it capture the wide space from a higher angle, and the footage looked like something from a futuristic cityscape. The floating perspective gave the mall a sense of depth I hadn’t noticed before. ✨🏬

The food court felt like the heart of the renovation. The layout was cleaner, more organized, and the new seating actually looked comfortable — not the stiff, plastic, fast-food kind that pushes you to leave as soon as you finish eating. I filmed slow passes through the walkways, letting the X4 catch the soft glow of overhead lights and the gentle reflections off polished tables. It struck me how much these little improvements matter. When a place feels cared for, people feel more connected to it. It becomes somewhere you want to stop, not somewhere you rush through. I appreciated that. It reminded me how environments can shift your mood without you even realizing it. 🍽️🌆

What I really enjoyed was how effortless it felt to document everything with the X4. In a place with so many lines, angles, reflections, and different pockets of light, traditional cameras always feel like work — adjusting, reframing, trying not to miss something. But with 360°, I could just walk and experience. The camera saw everything, even the details I didn’t notice until I reviewed the footage later: the soft glow under the new signage, the symmetry along the upper walkways, the gentle curve of the renovated storefronts. It felt like the X4 let me be present instead of chained to technical things. And that’s what I love — being free enough to enjoy the moment while still capturing something beautiful. 🎥💛

As I moved toward the exit, taking one last look at the open atrium, I felt that small shift I always get when I film a place that’s been transformed. It’s a mix of nostalgia and hope — remembering what it used to be while imagining what it might become. Portage Place has carried a lot of stories through the years, some beautiful, some rough. But seeing it revived like this made me feel something I haven’t felt about it in a long time: optimism. 🌇✨

Portage Place Mall’s 2024 Renovation – A 360° Tour Filmed with Insta360 X4 🏬🎥

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🎥 Insta360 X4

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Walking through the newly renovated Portage Place left me with the same kind of emotion I feel when a familiar street gets a fresh layer of life. There’s something deeply meaningful about watching a space that once felt tired suddenly glow again. The mall felt brighter, friendlier, and far more open than I remembered. Filming it in 360° made me appreciate the transformation even more, because I could feel the energy shift around me as I wandered through it. It reminded me that architecture and design don’t just change buildings — they change how we move, feel, and connect. 🏬💭🌄

The day taught me how important it is to capture these evolving parts of the city while they’re still new, before people get used to them and forget what it took to bring them back to life. I liked how the Insta360 X4 let me experience the space without worrying about framing or angles. The only challenge was the brighter lighting occasionally pushing exposure limits, but even that added a rawness to the footage that felt honest. The X4 made me feel like a quiet observer drifting through a moment of urban renewal — something personal, something meaningful. 🎥✨

Symbolically, the mall felt like a reminder that places — just like people — can be rebuilt. The wide halls, the new seating, the clean lines, the softened light… it all felt like hope stitched into architecture. A place that had once been overlooked now carried a sense of intention and possibility. Watching the footage later, I could see how the floating shots made the space feel like it was stretching into its next chapter, one gentle frame at a time. 🌆🌄💛

In the end, walking through Portage Place with a camera wasn’t about documenting a mall — it felt like witnessing a rebirth.