Will roadwork and infrastructure efforts chase away the city centre’s best events?

City Hall | Paul Dechene

Nobody went into council’s March 22 meeting to consider the Catalyst Committee’s final report expecting big surprises. Too much time, effort and ink had gone into their mega-project misadventure. Everybody knew the balance of the “Yes” votes would be cast for “full speed ahead.” And that was largely what happened. [1]

But there were surprises.

Chief among them were revelations that downtown construction unrelated to any Catalyst Projects would interfere with the Farmers’ Market and Folk Festival operations from 2024 to 2026 — that’s three years!

And apparently, there was even a period in the lead-up to council’s Catalyst meeting where the Farmers’ Market and Folk Festival weren’t certain they’d be able to operate in the Plaza and Victoria Park this year!

Before I get to the details, the good news: the Farmers’ Market and Folk Festival are going ahead in the downtown as planned this year. But things become considerably less certain for 2024 and beyond.

According to Chris Warren, the city’s director of roadways and transportation, the 11th Avenue restoration project is the main disruption here. It’s a four-year project that will run through to the 2026 construction season and involves digging up 11th Ave in stages from Broad St. to Albert St. so that underground infrastructure can be replaced and, as the street is restored, significant improvements to the streetscape can be installed.

Adding to the complexity for 2023, the 11th Ave. reconstruction isn’t the only project causing disruptions. SaskPower will dig up portions of the Plaza to assess the status of their underground infrastructure. That did threaten to throw the Farmers’ Market out of the Plaza this year, but Warren says they have coordinated with the utility to ensure that this work will be completed before Market season starts.

On top of this, late last year council hashed out an agreement with Harvard Developments to preserve part of the Burns Hanley building which sits just to the north of the Plaza. This means Harvard will be taking the building down brick by brick this construction season so that the façade can be incorporated into a new structure on the site.

Warren says that while the Burns Hanley project is being conducted by a private company, city staff have been working with Harvard to coordinate their work to minimize disruptions to activities on the Plaza.

Your Cars Mean We Can’t Have Nice Things

In the end, it looks like construction can co-exist with downtown’s regular activities.

This year.

For the following years, Warren says closing 11th Avenue means rerouting traffic, which will disrupt the Market and Festival.

“In 2024 and 2025, 11th Avenue will be closed to traffic. We are replacing the underground infrastructure, so it will be essentially excavated and ripped up. The only access to Cornwall Street will be off 12th Avenue or the Pat Fiacco Plaza,” says Warren.

“We’ve got businesses and parkades and quite frankly, the only opportunity to provide any emergency access to Cornwall Street will be off the Plaza,” Warren says. “We know that the Pat Fiacco Plaza is normally closed to traffic during the operation of the Farmers’ Market. But in 2024 and 2025, due to the vehicle and emergency access required for Cornwall Street, we won’t be able to close the Plaza.”

With Pat Fiacco Plaza turned into a vehicle thoroughfare while construction is on, the Farmers’ Market will have to move. And that means that the Plaza also won’t be available for the Folk Fest’s annual vendor market. As that is an important revenue stream for the non-profit festival, losing it would be a significant hit to their balance sheet.

Adding to the Festival’s woes, changes to bus routes and other disruptions along Lorne Street — a key access point to Victoria Park for the Festival — could force them to consider a more festival-friendly location.

Warren, however, says city staff are working to find a way for the Folk Festival to maintain all aspects of their event and continue in the Park they’ve been using for over 40 years.

“We know how important it is for the Folk Festival to remain in Victoria Park, and they’ve expressed their desire to stay there. We are definitely working very hard with them to exhaust all options for them to remain there for the duration of this construction project.” [2]

Make Way For The Bulldozers

As of this writing, the city is still working with the Folk Festival to keep them in the downtown.

The Farmers’ Market, however, have noted they have a Request For Proposals out to find a new home elsewhere in the city.

Laird says this RFP predates the construction confusion.

“We’re looking towards our future and what our dream and our goal would be is to have a space that is just ours where we can put down roots. The Plaza is that but then this [construction] is an example of how it’s not really right,” explains Laird.

“A year-round facility where we could be indoor or outdoor, it would be a real game changer for us, so we have that RFP out. We put it out months ago, before any of this started, just to try and give us some options for what our future could look like.”

In other words, if the Market finds a forever home outside the downtown, it’ll be leaving, never to return.

The same, sadly could also be true for the Folk Festival. During their presentation to council, when asked about what it would mean if they had to relocate for up to three years due to construction, Folk Festival artistic director Amber Goodwyn noted that they may also not return.

“If we’ve invested a lot of time and money in a new location that makes sense for us, we might have to stay there. We might not be able to afford to move back to downtown. We don’t know what this all means.”

The loss of both the Farmers’ Market and the Folk Festival would be devastating for our downtown. For many of the thousands of people who attend these events — and the millions of dollars they spend in adjacent downtown businesses every year — the Folk Festival and Farmers’ Market are summer in the Queen City. They’re a big part of what makes living through our hellish winters worthwhile.

The city embarked upon its Catalyst Misadventure because, it claimed, it desperately wants to revitalize the downtown. It’d be ironic if a roads project intended to spruce up the place managed to drive off two things currently bringing vitality into the downtown before city hall could spend a penny on a Catalyst Project.

Enjoy your downtown Farmers’ Market and Folk Festival this year. They could be the very last ones. ■


1. The votes were a unanimous “full speed ahead” for the non-vehicular trail system that would link downtown, the REAL District and the Warehouse District with the city’s larger trail system. All votes were “full speed ahead” for the central library branch rebuild except for a “No” vote from Councillor Shanon Zachidniak (Ward 8). The downtown arena had even fewer “Do it!” votes as councillors Zachidniak, Andrew Stevens (Ward 3) and Dan LeBlanc (Ward 6) voted against it. Crucial to securing the eight votes the arena did get was an amendment from councillor Terina Nelson (Ward 7) to expand the definition of “downtown” in “downtown arena” to include the Yards. This doesn’t mean that the arena will be built north of the tracks, only that city staff has to consider it as a possible location in addition to the Commitee’s three (shhh-secret!) downtown locations.

2. Also getting disrupted by the 11th Ave. Project: City transit! 11th Ave. is arguably the system’s most important transit hub and all the buses that use it (i.e., most of them) will be rerouted through downtown. Warren says a revised downtown route map is expected to be released in the next couple weeks. Keep an eye on regina.ca for updates.