Vancouver’s Downtown Hudson’s Bay Flagship Hauling Anchor, Sailing to New Future?

In no surprise to anyone, the Hudson’s Bay store downtown at Granville and Georgia Streets is announcing plans to redevelop. This iconic building was to be sold to an offshore company in 2018 but that deal did not go through.

As written by Viewpoint Vancouver four years ago, the 1927 terra-cotta 650,000 square foot building was assessed then at 59.7 million dollars. It was anticipated to sell at 675 million dollars at that time given the significant location and proximity to the Amazon rehousing of 6,000 workers in the 1.1. million square foot redevelopment of the central post office, now called The Post.

With Amazon’s plans well in the works to fully occupy the 17 and 18 floor towers of the former post office, the hub of office work is shifting south in the city towards Georgia Street.  Today’s assessment valuation of The Bay building is  221.1 million dollars reflective of the important location and desirability.

While previous plans four years ago were for a  “range of services and experiences across the workplace, retail, residential and entertainment categories” look for the new announcement to propose a hybrid retail and office space, with a tower option for further development.

Hudson’s Bay Company is now owned as an American company which purchased the assets in 2006. That ownership has rebranded its real estate division as “Streetworks”and will be embarking on “exploring ways to reconfigure the Bay Building” with partners and communities.

As Frank O’Brien writes in Business in Vancouver public information meetings will be held on the main floor of the Bay Building February 23 and 26th, with an “exhibit” of potential redevelopment options available to view starting this Monday February the 21st, Family Day.

Here is a short history on Hudson’s Bay Company put together for the History Channel outlining the company’s  350 year history to date.