$20M Golden Mile facelift comes with eviction notices

REGINA – It appears the city’s oldest shopping centre is in for a major facelift.

The Golden Mile is planning to sink more than $20 million into renovations and upgrades, but the changes won’t include a few familiar businesses.

The mall was built in the 1960s and the building is showing its age.  Frequent shoppers are looking forward to the changes and are curious about new additions to the centre.

“It would be nice if it got some new upgrades because our time will be a lot more worth spending here,” said one shopper at the mall Thursday.

However, not all of the 50 plus businesses currently operating in the centre will be around for the changes.

The manager of This Holes For You Body Piercing, Madison Stopanski, said her store, along with a number of others, recently received an eviction notice.

“It puts us in a really bad position, we don’t have much time to find a new location,” she added.

Other businesses will be relocated within the renovated centre or move to Southland mall.

Retrocom owns the property but its leasing and development agent, SmartCentres, is in charge of the revamps.

Sandra Kaiser with SmartCentres said they did give companies advance warning but Stopanski disputes that, and said she’s frustrated with what she called a lack of communication.

“There’s been rumors they were doing something for probably at least a year but we have never heard anything from the mall, it’s just rumors,” she added.

The work will be carried out in phases and includes tearing apart the centre portion of the mall to make room for a large, anchor tenant; a yet to be named grocery store.

The current grocery store would then be divided into smaller spaces.

SmartCentres still needs to apply for a building permit with the City of Regina, but if everything goes well, work should begin by the spring of 2015.