1926: the Regent Building is Born

On a chilly Friday night during the height of the Roaring Twenties, Famous Players opened the impressive Regent Theatre on Hastings Street in burgeoning North Burnaby. It was January 8th, 1926 when the first moviegoers arrived at the new edifice.

Due to dwindling attendance, which has been attributed to the popularity of a new home-based medium called television, the theatre closed its doors in 1957, and the building was sold in 1958.

Decades later, the building existed as a grocery retail outlet when a restoration project was begun. By 2010, the restoration had progressed to the point that the building’s current brick facade was in place.