Architecture bracket exposes history at risk

This year's edition of the "Arch Madness" showdown for iconic Edmonton buildings will focus on properties at the highest risk of demolition, examining both what the city stands to lose and opportunities for renewal.

"We are at a pretty critical junction here," said Dan Rose, creator of the annual bracket competition, which will run until March 31 through polls on his Instagram stories. "I don't think it's too hyperbolic to say that heritage architecture design is facing an unprecedented and unparalleled volume of threats."

This DEFCON 1 assessment from Rose, the former chair of the Edmonton Historical Board, is based on a blend of insights from the historical community and the cold truth that buildings have an expiry date — unless someone intervenes to preserve them. Hence, the stark terms users will be asked to take into account when voting for a building.

"This year, you have to answer a nearly unanswerable question: if you could only save one of these historic landmarks, which one would you save?" Rose posted when announcing the 2026 bracket.

The contenders are the Princess Theatre, the former Royal Alberta Museum, Spruce Avenue School, Donald Ross School, the University of Alberta's Horse Barn and Humanities Centre, the former University Grocery in Garneau, the High Level Bridge, the Freemasons' Hall, the Strathcona Garage, the Edmonton Light and Power Substation #100, the Argyll Safeway (now the city's Reuse Centre), the Horne & Pitfield Building, the Civil Defence Bunker, Dyde House, and A. MacDonald Consolidated. As of March 9, the Horse Barn and the Humanities Centre had been eliminated.

Rose held the first annual Arch Madness in 2021 as something of a "COVID foible," as both the online bracket and visits to historical sites were safe activities in the social-distancing era, he told Taproot. Moreover, Rose makes a habit of getting people engaged with history outside conventional means.

"I've always been interested in finding accessible ways to engage people around complex conversations about built heritage, architecture, and design, and the importance of conservation," Rose said. "It's kind of been my (modus operandi) for the better part of my time doing heritage things — to try and find novel ways to bring people into a conversation that … isn't the most accessible subject matter for people to wrap their heads around."

Rose said he hopes more people will become invested in the future of these buildings. Some bracket members have legal protections, but those protections are fallible, Rose said. For example, the Princess is a provincial historic resource and is listed on the register of municipal historic resources (which differs from the unprotected properties on the city's inventory of historic resources). And yet, in Rose's estimation, the Princess is at the greatest risk for demolition of the entire bunch.

"I'm not kidding, that building could literally crumble, like, tomorrow," Rose opined based on a tour of the building this winter. "There's standing water in the basement of that building right now, which is pretty horrifying."

To use a grim metaphor, historical protections prohibit execution, but do little to prevent a slow, gradual death. "Even for buildings that are designated by these lists, such as the Princess, the little piece of paper and the little plaque on the building certainly do not prohibit an owner from simply letting the building fall into disrepair," Rose said.

The Princess is listed for sale for $2.5 million, and the owners have said they prefer to sell it to someone who will use the property as an arts or performance space of some kind. Listing agent Ian Fletcher told Taproot that remains the plan for the property. The $9.2-million crowdfunding campaign by a third party to revitalize the Princess, which has raised less than $8,000 since February 2025, has no bearing on the plan to sell it, Fletcher said.

Rose toured the Princess with his partner, playwright Samantha Fraughton, to examine its viability as a performance space for use during the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival, for example. Venue upgrades are among the ideas for reuse on the theatre's Arch Madness competitor profile.

"Being right on Whyte Avenue is a great opportunity to create a venue for entertainment," said Vivian Manasc, founding principal at Reimagine Architects. "I think there are a lot of possibilities for what you could do with the Princess."

She told Taproot that adding a cocktail bar somewhere in the space could help bring in revenue outside of performances, which is a point echoed in the Arch Madness post. One possibility she would not suggest for vacant and decrepit theatre renovations is a housing conversion. Former cinemas like the Princess, the Paramount on Jasper Avenue, and The Avenue on 118 Avenue do not have enough windows for this purpose, she said.

Manasc's Reimagine is working alongside Beljan Development for a proposed revitalization of the former home of the Royal Alberta Museum, despite the fact that the Alberta government earmarked $30 million for its demolition in Budget 2026.

Finance Minister Nate Horner has said the province remains open to pitches to save the old RAM. The press secretary for the Ministry of Infrastructure confirmed this to Taproot in an email, saying there are three proponents with plans to adapt the RAM, and that the ministry is working with the first of the three. Should those negotiations fail, the rep said, the government will move on to the second proponent and then to the third. The press secretary declined to name any of the proponents due to non-disclosure agreements, but Manasc confirmed that her proposal with Beljan is one of them.

"We are not giving up by any means," she told Taproot.

Manasc and Beljan have proposed the new life at the old RAM could be a mix of retail, food service, recreation spaces, and cultural facilities, but a transformation project must be amenable to the needs of tenants rather than locked into one usage or another.

"The art of repurposing an asset is just understanding how you create that flexibility, how you create all the pieces that tenants or different uses will require," Ivan Beljan, the owner of Beljan Development, told Taproot in 2024.

As for Rose, he suspects the government has already decided to demolish the old RAM regardless of what it has said. However, he said, if the province were to entrust the future of the building to anyone, Manasc and Beljan would make an excellent choice in his estimation.

"If the government (doesn't) bite on those guys, I can't imagine what they would bite on," he said.

Rose and the Edmonton Heritage Council, a sponsor, will examine the topic of reuse further as the Arch Madness bracket unfolds.