‘A place where we celebrate our stories, culture, resilience’

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This article was published 13/03/2025 (190 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

According to Michael Redhead Champagne, the North End is a neighbourhood of artists, storytellers and creatives.

“We’ve lost too many community gathering spaces,” says the well-known community organizer. “The Palace Theatre can be a place where we celebrate our stories, culture and resilience.”

Champagne is outlining a new initiative to restore the historic and long-vacant Palace Theatre, transforming it into an arts and culture hub for Winnipeg’s North End.

Built as a vaudeville theatre in 1912, the dark red brick building at 501 Selkirk Ave. harkens back to an era when acts including Buster Keaton and Harry Houdini alakazamed into town.

The theatre has stood empty for more than two decades; just last month, its signature but deteriorating marquee was taken down.

With the formation of the Palace Theatre Community Committee, announced this week, there’s renewed hope that the marquee will not only soon return, but light up the with the names of performers from Winnipeg and beyond.

“We would want to highlight local North End artists with a special attention on youth and Indigenous artists,” says Champagne. “At the same time, we’d like to bring in higher-profile acts that are coming through the city.”

Before that can happen, the committee — spearheaded by the freshly inaugurated North End History (formerly the North End Historical Society), headed by Champagne — has some interesting work ahead of it.

Collaborating with the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba, the committee, says Champagne, has two primary goals: conducting community consultations to better inform the theatre’s design and raising the necessary funds to kick that plan into motion.

The initiative follows years of advocacy to prevent the building’s demolition. The U of M, which acquired the property around 2000, flagged it for demolition in 2019.

But after discussions with community representatives like North End History, the university invested in necessary remediation work, such as removing mould and asbestos, and have pledged to support the committee’s efforts.

North End History’s efforts coincide with another ambitious undertaking, its arson-prevention initiative, which engages local residents, city counsellors and other areas of government. All part of a broader attempt to engage in local community renewal, says Champagne, through the preservation of North End buildings and history.

“Overwhelmingly, in the North End, we’ve been gathering together for funerals, vigils, protests,” says Champagne.

“The Palace Theatre initiative hopes to acknowledge the very real struggles of North Enders, but also provide a platform for us to exercise our voices through arts and culture.”

conrad.sweatman@freepress.mb.ca