Mackenzie and Thayer Warehouse

Description of the Historic Place

The Mackenzie and Thayer Warehouse (also known as the Macleod's Building) is a three-storey brick building located at 303 Pacific Avenue in the city’s downtown. Built in 1928, the warehouse was built by Macleod's, a manufacturing firm in the city's then-new warehouse district.

Heritage Value

The Mackenzie and Thayer Warehouse was originally built to accommodate MacLeod’s, who occupied the building up until the mid 1940s. In 1966, Mackenzie & Thayer Ltd bought the building to accommodate its building supply operation and stayed there until 1984. Between 1985 and 2006, the Mackenzie and Thayer Warehouse had a series of retail and nightclub tenants.

Zu, an interactive agency, bought the building in 2007 and spent 18 months completely renovating and restoring the three-storey warehouse. They moved in to the building in 2009 and won the 2010 Municipal Heritage Award for adaptive re-use of a heritage space. The space was completely modernized with movable glass walls and a state-of-the-art energy-efficient heating and cooling system, all of which helps showcase the building's original features such as the exposed brick/ceilings and the original wood beams. An addition was completed in 2015. The building was the recipient of the Lieutenant Governor's Architectural Heritage Award for Sympathetic New Construction in 2016.

The Mackenzie & Thayer Warehouse continues to be a notable heritage feature in Saskatoon's downtown and is representative of the prevailing design of warehouses built during the 1920s. 

Source: City of Saskatoon Built Heritage Database

Character Defining Elements

Key elements which contribute to the heritage value of this historic resource include:

• Its utilitarian aesthetic, represented in its brick façade and flat roofline; and,
• Those features that reflect the building’s historical and commercial history including its corner location along Pacific Avenue and 24th Street East.