 |
 Honouring Mount Pleasant’s character is key when redeveloping the 200 block of East Broadway, says Rize CEO Will Lin. His buildings were lost in an inferno on Christmas day. (Carmine Marinelli, 24 Hours) |
Two massive fires within six weeks and a few blocks have South Main's community leaders worried their slice of Vancouver is in danger of losing its "cool."
Just south of Broadway on Main Street sits a vacant lot, the result of an inferno on Nov. 12 that consumed several businesses.
Though bulldozers have yet to arrive at the corner of Kingsway and Broadway, a three-alarm blaze Christmas morning has sealed the fate for a number of businesses there.
Now, business leaders such as Jim Dreichel, a Mount Pleasant BIA board member, are fearful developers will place a priority on maximizing profit over supporting a vibrant community when plans are made to erect new buildings.
"When a developer moves in and they put in retail and market rate condos, then it's those people [who] benefit off the backs of people who made [the neighbourhood] cool," Dreichel said.
Restaurateur Mike Zalman, who lost Slickity Jim's Chat 'N Chew in November, is painfully aware that the cost of opening and operating a business in South Main will increase dramatically as the neighbourhood gentrifies.
|
"I enquired about the building at the southwest corner of Main and Broadway and found out it's going to be a Tim Hortons and a Wendy's," he said. "It hurts. The gods of progress have started to smite Main Street."
But Will Lin, CEO of Rize Alliance Properties Ltd., which owns two of the three buildings lost at Kingsway and Broadway and an adjoining property, said his firm's plans to redevelop the majority of the block must be in line with the desires of area residents.
"We've been speaking with the city, making enquiries about a comprehensive, major redevelopment of the property that would include a major retail upgrade, maybe on the second floor as well, and a very significant substantial residential redevelopment on say the fourth floor and up."
Lin said ground could break on the new development in as little as 18 months with approval from city council after several rounds of public consultation.
"When you fill the space with a Subway or a UPS Store it's not going to be a project that will be supported by the area."
"I enquired about the building at the southwest corner of Main and Broadway and found out it's going to be a Tim Hortons and a Wendy's. It hurts. The gods of progress have started to smite Main Street."
---
HISTORY 101
Should history repeat itself, a mixed commercial-residential development will rise from the ashes of two sites along Broadway gutted by massive fires.
Less than a decade ago a three-alarm fire wiped out the east side of Main Street between Broadway and 10th Avenue.
Lost in the inferno Feb. 21, 2001 were a factory, restaurant and jerky shop.
Standing in their place today is the HUB, a four-storey 42-unit condominium project, heralded then for providing much-needed housing while honouring the neighbourhood's heritage through the building's design.
The streetscape seems seamless for pedestrians walking the Main Street corridor, giving are business leaders reason to ask for the same standard of design when sites at Main and Broadway and Kingsway and Broadway are redeveloped.