Mount Pleasant has industrial heritage buildings. Who knew?
Here’s one at 5th and Ontario heading for a rebuild.
Thanks to VanCityBuzz.
“Mount Pleasant has had a catalytic reawakening and because of companies like Hootsuite and Double Negative, many new social media, production and post-production and high tech companies want to move in,” says Matthew MacLean of Cushman & Wakefield. “With gross rents at 25% less than downtown and the Broadway Corridor, and no new supply of office coming any time soon, it attracts businesses that want to be in the heart of the city’s new creative zone.”
And this from the Vancouver Sun.
Now seeking building permits, PC Urban, with Christopher Bozyk Architects, plans to have 7,200 square feet of retail space at street level and four levels of office space above. There will be 70 parking stalls as well as bike parking and end-of-trip facilities.
Mount Pleasant used to be the industrial heartland of the city, said PC Urban Principal Brent Sawchyn. “Then manufacturing all went overseas or to the suburbs. Now it’s returning. It’s gone full circle.” . . . .
. . . He said they worked with city and heritage experts to learn more about the building and to figure out a way to maintain its legacy. “They manufactured radio and radar for the allied fleet and merchant marine fleet,” Sawchyn said. “A lot of stuff was done under cloak and dagger.”
. . . Sawchyn said they’re expecting the building to once again host high-tech tenants. “A lot of the manufacturing today is intellectual property, so the Hootsuites of the world and the post-media production people like DHX Media and Image Engine, those are the types of people that are gravitating toward Mount Pleasant.”
Looks like office as a principal use rather than an accessory (minor) use is on the way. The first nail in the coffin of this key “industrial” part of town.
I suppose that’s inevitable, as that area doesn’t have easy regional truck access.
@Frank … out of curiosity, as long as there is just as much industrial use after the commercial hat is added, how is it a bad thing necessarily? So long as the industrial use is a a requirement for the space, it doesn’t have competition from commercial tenants, so other than having a nice new shiny building to work in, how are they nailed?
It’s laughable to suggest that software and digital media companies are doing manufacturing. It’s nice to have hi-tech in our city, but it’s not manufacturing or industrial, and it would be better to be open and upfront about that.
@artitectus, there is no industrial usage in these buildings. It’s office space and retail. Not necessarily anything wrong with that, but ridiculous to pretend this neighbourhood is being maintained as industrial of any kind.
what is different about the ground floor of the the new building and the existing building? is there necessarily more industrial use in the existing building than the ground floor of the renovated building? The rule now is that the space is industrial use. The rule will be that the same space is industrial use. If that isn’t enforced now, why does putting a commercial hat on the building change or make it worse? Isn’t the issue with the enforcement, rather than the building?
The building isn’t doing anything wrong. Improving the building also won’t be doing anything wrong. Being against the building won’t reintroduce industrial because as you suggest, it already isn’t there. The discussion should be about whether it should be, and if it should be, then how to make sure it is … not whether the building should or shouldn’t get renovated with a pretty looking hat.
Thanks for answering the question so well, Bar Foo.
I’d just rather protect our messy industrial areas for their intended uses, rather than nibbling away at them. Right next door on Main at 2nd Council just last week rezoned at the SW corner for a 12-storey building for residential use and 4000f of artists space. This could have easily have been office use, plus some residential. Why go into the heart of this district this way?
This council is only interested in tech or locavore nosh. Manufacturing and other businesses are of little interest.
As Brian Jackson said, on his way out, they have an ambitious agenda.