Heritage building will find new home in Scotia Place arena

When the shiny Scotia Place opens in 2027, the new arena will feature a piece of Calgary's past.

The Stephenson building dates back to 1911, but last month it disappeared as work crews completed the disassembling of the heritage building.

After serving for decades as a grocery store and post office in the once residential neighbourhood of Victoria Park, the Stephenson building is now in storage.

But it's featured in the development permit application for Calgary's new 18,400 seat event centre.

The small, two-storey brick building is slated to reappear on the arena's north side, where plans call for a new food court to operate when the arena opens for business.

Bob Hunter, who serves on the event centre project committee for the City of Calgary, said the Stephenson building had to be removed because the new arena's footprint will literally cover the site where the small block once stood.

As the new arena was in the design phase, he said the idea of incorporating the heritage building came from the city's planning department and Heritage Calgary.

It was determined the building couldn't be lifted and moved, as that might endanger its structural integrity. So the decision was made to dismantle it.

"How can you reintegrate it into, let's call it, a 2027 state-of-the-art NHL event centre? So that took a long time to come up with a solution that I think everyone was happy with, and now I think everyone is pretty positive about what the final result is," said Hunter.

The dismantling of the small building brick by brick was a "painstaking process," but he said it had to be done in a way to ensure the building didn't collapse during the work.

The pieces are now wrapped up and in storage containers in their contractor's yard.  

If it takes a scheduled 30 months to build the new arena, Hunter said he expects the heritage building will start coming back to its old neighbourhood during the final year of the project.

While design renderings call for it to be a cafe, the ultimate decision on its use will rest with the building's operator, the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation (CSEC), which owns the NHL's Calgary Flames and other local sports franchises.

Hunter said it will need updated electrical and plumbing systems. But he adds anyone familiar with the Stephenson building will recognize it, right down to a faded sign that was painted on its side decades ago.

"It will be the same dimensions and the same size, and hard to tell whether it just got moved over on a truck versus being disassembled and reassembled."

The CEO of Heritage Calgary, Josh Traptow, said his organization is pleased the Stephenson building will be part of the new event centre and that it will have a prominent place.

"This rare remaining Edwardian commercial building is a signpost of the past in the community. From the 1960s, urban renewal schemes, an LRT line and new arena, and the Stampede expansion led to a gradual loss of Victoria Park's historic fabric. The Stephenson & Co. building stands out as an exception," said Traptow.

Heritage planners generally aren't supportive of moving historic buildings, but sometimes — as in cases like this — it's the only option, other than demolition.

"When you move something, it loses the context of the community that it's in. But sometimes that has to be done," said Traptow.

For the Stephenson building, it will wind up a short distance from where it was initially built. And while the entire community around it will have changed by the time it reappears, it may still have a connection to food — just as it did for much of its first 113 years.