City of Regina approves land for Conexus to build office space in Wascana Park

Regina city council has approved a plan that will allow Conexus Credit Union to build new office space in Wascana Park.

The city is donating 2.6 acres of land in Wascana Centre to the University of Regina which will then lease the property to Conexus to build a new headquarters. The proposal is meant to provide income to the university to go towards renovating the College Avenue campus buildings.

In an interview with the CJME Morning Show, Regina Mayor Michael Fougere explained that the U of R came up with the proposal to fund the Campus Renewal Project.

“The federal government has offered about $28 million as part of the project, so it’s a $100 million plus project in total. What was the last piece of the puzzle was for the city to donate land which could be used for Conexus to build their building,” Fougere said.

Now that the plan has been approved by council, it will move on to the design phase. Fougere noted that any building will have to comply with strict rules.

“The Wascana Centre Authority will oversee that and there is very stringent guidelines that meet city requirements and then there is another set of rules if you will to comply – no higher than three stories, you can’t block the view of the corridor from city hall over to the legislature – there’s a lot of rules they’ve got to follow,” he said.

He said one delegation turned up at Monday’s city council meeting to oppose the project and the main concern raised was that the office building will not be in the downtown core which is part of the official community plan.

The community plan dictates that 80 per cent of office space must be in the downtown area. Accounting for this new proposed building, the mayor said 82 per cent of office space would remain in the downtown.

NOTE: A previous version of this story quoted the mayor saying 60 per cent of office space remains in the downtown, but he later corrected that figure to 80 per cent.