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Top Ten Endangered Sites
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(Updated)
 The
future of the 2400 Motel — Kingsway's iconic landmark
— may soon be up for public discussion.
Rumour has it that the City will soon be conducting
a planning process for the stretch of Kingsway around the
'2400' with a view to encouraging higher density residential/commercial
developments.
In fact, the City has already been working with
the owners of the nearby Eldorado Motel to rezone and redevelop
this site as a mixed-use development. Several years ago, in
an unrelated move, the City's properties department purchased
the 2400 Kingsway site with a view to re-sale down the road
as a development site. Now, as the planets align along Kingsway,
it's looking more than likely that the 2400 will be next on
the development agenda.
The 2400 Motel, built in 1946, is simply the
best of the post-war Kingsway auto-courts. As the late 1940s
and 50s ushered in an age of unprecedented mobility, auto-courts
sprung up across North America to capture the market for highway-oriented
accommodation.
With completion of the Patullo Bridge and King
George Highway in 1936, Kingsway became the final leg in a
modern highway system linking Vancouver to the border and
the States. Typical of the early motels, the 2400 was built
as a cluster of cottages on a lawn around a central office,
with a freestanding roadside neon sign to attract passing
motorists.
An early example of the trend to modernism,
the Motel's 'streamline moderne' design — most notable
in its flat-roofed office building — evokes the new
post-war world of speed and personal mobility.
The 2400 Motel has been scrupulously maintained
over the years and is virtually unchanged. With savvy management,
it could continue as such into the future, marketed internationally
as a unique travel experience.
Updated 14 April
2006: As the City's Norquay 'Neighbourhood Centre'
planning process has now commenced, HV will be drafting a
letter of concern to City Council. As the City purchased the
site many years ago as a development site, the '2400' is seriously
at risk.
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