Bidto remake St. Chad’s looking for help

ARTHUR WHITE-CRUMMEY

The long-suffering St. Chad’s Chapel and College could be getting a makeover that will transform it into a restaurant and condo complex. It’s part of a renovation plan set to come before Regina City Council on Monday, when developers will ask councillors for a 10year tax exemption for the $4.16-million project.

According to the plan, the restaurant would take up the chapel itself, while the rest of the existing property would accommodate condo units. An addition would hold 1,900 square feet of retail space.

The building was erected between 1913 and 1914 on Anglican Diocese of Qu’Appelle land. It has been vacant since 1970, when a girls’ school there closed. It has not held up well, according to submissions to council. Developers mention window lintels that are “damaged beyond repair” and moss growing over the roof. Inside is a state of “extreme disrepair,” with heavy water damage causing the wood floors to bubble and heave.

Administration has come out in favour of the tax exemption, which developers estimate at about $480,000 in value.

WEED BYLAW READY, BUT NOT UNOPPOSED

City staff have drawn up the pot-shop zoning bylaw amendments council ordered at its meeting last month. If passed on Monday, the changes will go into effect right away — though dispensaries won’t be able to sell marijuana until it becomes legal in October.

The executive directors of the Downtown and Warehouse business improvement districts are expected to renew their push for changes when they address council Monday.

The Warehouse District’s Leasa Gibbons wants the whole district to be open to pot shops, not just the major arteries in the current plan.

In her own letter to council, Downtown’s Judith Veresuk writes that the current plan “will effectively eliminate Downtown as a viable location for Cannabis Retail Stores.”

Under the proposed bylaw, pot shops would need to seek approval through council as a discretionary use. Veresuk says that will add four months to a process that dispensary owners only have a year to complete.

ROGERS WANTS TO LEASE CITY LAND

Rogers Communications has plans to build several cell towers in Regina to address “coverage gaps,” and is looking to lease four plots of city land to host them.

The towers, which are set to vary between 25 and 50 metres in height, would go up in or near the neighbourhoods of Lakeview, Transcona, Lakeridge and Gardiner Heights.

In its report to the city for Monday’s meeting, Rogers noted that tower sites are “extremely expensive to build,” but did not give a dollar value.