Calgary

Tax-free status renewed for No. 1 Royal Canadian Legion in downtown Calgary

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Motion to exempt group from property tax includes plan to designate building as municipal heritage resource

The Royal Canadian Legion No. 1 branch, at 116 Seventh Ave. S.E., will continue to be exempt from paying property tax, Calgary city council voted on Monday. (Government of Alberta)

City council passed a motion Monday to extend the long-standing tax-exempt status for the Royal Canadian Legion's No. 1 branch in downtown Calgary.

With the 99-year-old deal that excludes the organization from paying property tax set to expire, the city's original Legion would have faced a levy of about $60,000 in 2019.

The motion put forward by Coun. Druh Farrell, which passed without amendment, ties renewal of the tax exempt status to the building being declared a municipal heritage resource.

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Coun. George Chahal and Coun. Ward Sutherland opposed the motion, which gives the organization tax-free status for another 100 years.

The building at 116 Seventh Ave. S.E. has been a provincial historic resource since 1983, according to Alberta Heritage Resource Management.

It was built in 1922 as a memorial hall for soldiers who fought in the First World War and a clubhouse for the Calgary branch of the Great War Veterans' Association of Canada.

In 1926, that organization voted to join the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League — now the Royal Canadian Legion.

The two-storey brick building with sandstone accents is in a Georgian Revival architectural style "evident in the building's largely symmetrical façade divided into three bays of windows on either side of a prominent, double arched central entryway," says the Alberta Register of Historic Places website.

The No. 1 Legion has been used in recent years for rock shows and even professional wrestling events.