The Leader Building, 1853 Hamilton
Built in 1911 as the original home of the Leader Post, the Leader Building was designated a Municipal Heritage Property in 1987. In 2004, Nicor Property Management (Ross Keith) purchased the building. Harvard Developments acquired shares in the property in 2005.
The original plan to develop condo units in this building is now the plan that is being built. In that plan, the top five floors become condo units, with prices starting as low as $217,350. Less than one third of the main floor would be retail space, with the remaining two thirds and the entire basement dedicated to parking.
The ArtsAction Feasibility Study identified a second option for this building that required an influx of government subsidy for construction costs, through SaskHousing and other agencies. The ArtsAction proposal included the creation of three floors of artist live/work space (to be subsidized by SaskHousing), two floors of office space (with arts organizations on one floor and an artist business centre and classroom space on the other floor), a main floor restaurant and grocery store, and basement recording studios and rehearsal rooms. Unfortunately, SaskHousing’s priorities are to provide support for housing for seniors, people with disabilities and families. They do not have programs to support housing for singles, so the top three floors would have to be renovated without subsidy. (In fact, 18 months after submitting a proposal for housing support to SaskHousing, Inner Circle Management and Nicor had yet to receive an official written response to that application.)
The building owners (Nicor and Harvard) had a federal grant of over $700,000 that required the bulk of the building renovations to be completed before the summer of 2009. To satisfy the terms of that grant, the building owners proceeded to develop the building, and it is now the home of NWL Design on the main floor, Solvera Solutions on the second floor, and condos on the 4th, 5th and 6th floor.
In December 2008, Inner Circle began working on obtaining the funding for an arts business centre on the third floor of the Leader Building. A detailed business plan was written and delivered to potential funding partners in July 2009. An interministerial committee of the provincial government was established, and after months had passed, they determined they were not able to support the project. Another year had gone by, with another wasted effort. As of March 2011, Toronto's Artscape is now in the process of establishing the first Centre for Creative Entrepreneurship in Canada. We could have had the first in Canada in Regina, Saskatchewan, but a very real lack of vision and desire to invest in the creative economy by our provincial government has ensured we will continue to watch as other provinces move forward. This is not the first time that plans developed in Saskatchewan have been adopted in other provinces while they collect dust here. The Cultural Industries Development Strategy for Saskatchewan, written in 1997, was adopted and implemented in Manitoba and Newfoundland. Meanwhile, it's never had a response in Saskatchewan.