Construction on Regina's Capital Pointe set to begin after Thanksgiving

Construction may finally begin on the long-awaited Capital Pointe building in Regina.

The lot at the corner of Albert Street and Victoria Avenue has been empty since the Plains Hotel was demolished in December 2011, with the exception of several large signs that show off the promised hotel/condo building.

On Tuesday morning, a group of people stood in the lot to announce that construction is finally set to begin.

“Construction is going to start next week,” Capital Pointe project director Greg Black announced. The construction will be managed by western-based ITC Construction Group with Doublestar Drilling doing the shoring and excavation work.

“In a project of this magnitude, there’s a lot of details to be sorted out but our anticipation at this point in time is that our schedule will be about 32 months to full completion,” Black explained.

ITC will bring equipment onto the site next week to prepare for Doublestar to begin its shoring work. Doublestar’s equipment will be brought onto the site the following week – after Thanksgiving – and that’s when, according to Black, construction will begin in earnest.

Due to years of delays in the project, Black acknowledged that some people may have doubts.

“I expect people are going to want to wait and see. I expect they’ll be looking to see what happens next week and the week after but this is the commitment that we can make today. That we will start next week, and the week after there will be heavy-duty equipment rolling onto the site.”

The first phase of work will see the five-storey deep underground parkade built – the deepest parkade in the city. Black explained that it will take about a year for the project to be brought back up to grade.

The project, as it stands now, will see a 12-storey hotel adjacent to a 26-storey condo building. Black indicated that a 27th storey might be in the plans as a mechanical room. About 150 people would work on the project.