| 2006
Top Ten Endangered Sites
This year marks publication of the sixth
annual Heritage Vancouver Top Ten Endangered Sites.
Since its inception, our "Top Ten" list has been
recognized as the authoritative overview of the city's threatened
heritage resources.
It is, sadly, always difficult to keep the list
to ten: the explosive real-estate development market exerts
constant pressure on our heritage stock. That designated heritage
sites are on our list is cause for great concern, and we continue
to be anxious about the state of the Heritage Register. The
final choice of sites include those already in critical danger
or likely to be so shortly.
Back this year in the No. 1 spot is the Burrard
Bridge, threatened yet again by the new City Council's
decision to scrap the proposed lane-reallocation trial and
proceed full-tilt with sidewalk outriggers. Arthur Erickson's
Evergreen Building is not yet out of the
woods and remains on the list. Back on the list from 2004
is Malkin Bowl, as TUTS continues to raise
funds to replace it. Predictably, a host of new sites are
endangered, including Salsbury Gardens, the
Vogue Theatre, and the iconic 2400
Motel on Kingsway.
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(updated)
Hatchet job. These are the
only words to describe the current plan to widen the
bridge's sidewalks, as the newly elected City Council
wasted no time overturning the previous Council’s
trial-lane reallocation.
> see full details
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1081 Burrard Street
One
of the landmarks of downtown Vancouver, the venerable
red-brick St. Paul’s Hospital built on Burrard
Street, may soon be just a memory. Political questions
swirl around the issue of whether or not the hospital
should be moved — from its original site in downtown
Vancouver — to a completely different location
in the False Creek Flats.
> see full details
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(Saved - updated)
1285 West Pender St.
The future is still uncertain for this modern landmark.
Arthur Erickson designed the Evergreen as an office
building for owner John Laxton. Completed in 1980, the
Evergreen’s unique stepped terraces and hanging
gardens were configured to create the experience of
working on a mountainside.
> see full details
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918 Granville St.
Say it’s
not true! Vancouver's fabulous Vogue theatre —
a National Historic Site and a Vancouver Heritage Register
A-listed site — is threatened. Allied Properties
has purchased the building, and the initial plan to
convert the theatre to a supper club/cabaret suggests
an irrevocable compromise of the theatre’s elaborate
interior spaces. Stepped tables may replace the theatre
seating with the existing stage converted to kitchen
space.
> see full details
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(Updated)
2400 Kingsway
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.
> see full details
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(Lost - updated)
This unique site,
known in the neighbourhood as “Salsbury Garden”,
comprises three city lots at the southwest corner of
Napier St. and Salsbury Drive, including two historic
BC Mills cottages (#1117 & #1121) and an extraordinary
heritage garden/forest. The two small working-class
homes, built in 1907, were probably the first houses
built on this part of Salsbury Drive and are rare surviving
examples of early pre-fabricated construction.
> see full details
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(Lost w/ some parts salvaged - updated)
2936 West 4th Avenue
Old Kitsilano — particularly
its early 20th Century commercial buildings —
is rapidly disappearing. The former ‘Black Swan
Records’ building — a cherished community
landmark at the corner of West Fourth and Bayswater
— is set to become another casualty of unabated
condo development.
> see full details
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(Updated)
Stanley Park
On a return engagement
from our 2004 Top Ten list, Malkin Bowl remains in serious
danger as TUTS (Theatre Under the Stars) organizers
continue to raise funds for its demolition and replacement.
‘Marion Malkin Memorial Bowl’ was built
in 1934 with funds donated by William Harold Malkin,
grocery wholesaler, former Mayor, and Park Board Commissioner,
in memory of his wife Marion Malkin. Originally designed
as a band shell, the venue has been used for most of
its history for the summer TUTS musicals.
> see full details
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The 1865 Hastings
Mill Store Museum, Vancouver's oldest building, could
be endangered through long-term neglect. Sole existing
survivor of the Great Fire of 1886, the building was
once the company store for Hastings Mill — located
on Burrard Inlet at the foot of Dunlevy Street.
> see full details
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(Saved - updated)
1450 West 64th Avenue
In late fall 2005,
City Council approved a 120-day demolition delay to
allow sufficient funds to be raised for the purchase
and preservation of the Kogawa House as a cultural and
literary landmark. The Land Conservancy of BC (TLC)
has stepped in to help raise the over one million dollars
required to buy the house and pay for the repairs and
renovations necessary to convert it to a writers’
centre. However, if efforts to purchase the property
within the 120-day period (which ends March 31) are
unsuccessful, the current private owner will demolish
the house.
> see full details
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