A City Blessed with Built Heritage
Ask any visitor to Summerside—on business or pleasure—and they will tell you that Summerside is a city blessed with Built Heritage. The concentration of Heritage Properties in the Old Downtown, especially those located within the City’s Heritage District, is among the most intense and accessible in all of Atlantic Canada. Altogether, 120 recognized heritage places are listed on the Canadian Register of Historic Places. Being a small city, it is possible to walk the wide, gently rising streets adorned with residential architecture from the nineteenth and early twentieth century, in styles that include Victorian, Queen Anne Revival, Gothic Revival, and Colonial Revival.
Summerside’s Built Heritage is a precious social, cultural and economic asset.
Socially, the heritage buildings of Summerside provide a tangible link to layers of its past including shipbuilding, commerce, transportation, and fox industries. Homes that stand proudly transcending one era to another tell the Summerside story in rich detail, linking one generation of residents to the next. And so it goes.
Culturally, the residential architecture of Summerside anchors its sense of place revealing the breadth of Summerside culture and history experienced by our people. Sense of place sets us apart, impossible to manufacture, inseparable from our civic pride. This cultural value emanating from our built heritage easily transforms into an economic asset.
Communities with an undeniable sense of place draw cultural tourists, attract retirees, and help attract the “creative class” of mobile knowledge-based workers and entrepreneurs for whom quality of life plays a key role in deciding where to work and live.
Join us in celebrating what we have and who we are as a community—re-discover and absorb our Built Heritage. Our many stewards of our heritage resources, both private and public, are working to ensure that our Built Heritage lives on.
To learn more about Summerside’s Heritage District, contact:
Lori Ellis
[email protected]
902-432-1297
Culture Summerside, 205 Prince Street, Summerside, PE C1N 2Z5
Related City Documents:
Heritage Bylaw
City of Summerside’s Cultural Plan
Heritage Conservation Plan
Related External Links:
Conservation of Canadian Heritage
PEI Historic Places Initiative