Regina announces plans for spring-to-fall food, retail, event space downtown

Regina has announced a new destination for shopping and eating to roll out next year in a former downtown heritage site with a connection to Louis Riel.

The Skuare (square with a k) will be located just north of Victoria Park, in the former location of the Burns Hanley site. It will be open from spring to fall and is meant be an interim space for festivals, events and entrepreneurs. Part of it will be constructed using old shipping containers.

The Regina Downtown Business Improvement District (RDBID) announced the project Wednesday. RDBID will own and operate The Skuare. The goal is for it to open in summer 2025.

"Giving people who work downtown a reason to stay downtown after five, that's what this will accomplish," said Judith Veresuk, executive director of RDBID.

The Skuare's 11,000 square foot site will host a beer garden, space for food trucks, activation, performance space and ancillary storage for Regina's Downtown Clean Team.

Veresuk said the site will close at 10 p.m., with RDBID hoping customers will then go patronize other downtown establishments.

"So having that spillover effect will create that nightlife."

The project was inspired by similar efforts in other cities, such as Stackt in Toronto, the largest shipping container market in North America, Veresuk said.

The use of shipping containers will make this the first of its kind in Regina.

"Just looking at how other downtowns or other areas of other cities have activated space, and that idea that shipping containers seem to be very popular because you can pick them up and move them," said Mayor Sandra Masters at a news conference Wednesday morning.

"You're trying not to do too many permanent things, because it may not be permanent 15 to 20 years down the road."

Mayor Masters said it will be a step in making Regina's downtown a safer place. 

"Activation creates safety for people. So you're not solo down here at night. The businesses that operate after five will have a source and a reason for patrons to go and enjoy restaurants downtown here as well."

Preserving cultural integrity 

The Burns Hanley site, which previously occupied the space, was a designated heritage building in the city's Victoria Park Heritage Conservation District.

The building was constructed in 1912 and sat on the site of the former St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, which was built in 1883. Louis Riel's body was briefly kept in that after his execution, before it was sent to Winnipeg. 

In 2021, Regina's planning commission reviewed an application to demolish the site.

In 2022, city council voted in favour of demolishing the downtown building on the condition that its facade is preserved and maintained for use in future developments.

Heritage Regina is working with RDBID to tell the history of the site. 

"A lot of people don't know what that is," said Jackie Schmidt, president of Heritage Regina. "We'll tell a story about that district and what the Gordon Block meant to people."

A commemorative mural and a plaque are both in the works. 

"We've discussed it and what we would like to see on there. So we're meeting right now to decide what happens there."

Métis Nation-Saskatchewan declined to comment.