We saw an earlier version of a YWCA building in this location in an earlier post. This later building was much bigger; and didn’t really last very long. We think our picture dates from the late 1970s or possibly early ’80s. The low-rise part of the building here dated back to 1951 and was designed by Sharp, Thompson, Berwick, Pratt, while the residential tower was added over a podium with a pool and gym, designed by Vladimir Plavsic & Associates and completed in 1969. In 1995 there was replacement YWCA hotel on Beatty Street, and a new YWCA (designed in-house by Bentall’s Charles Bentall Architects) on Hornby Street. Two years later the old YWCA building seen here was imploded.
After a few years delay the site became part of Bentall Five, a new office tower built in two phases – the top 11 floors were completed in 2007, three years after the first 22 (when sufficient tenants had been found to make the additional space a viable scheme). To enable the phased construction to occur, a staging area had to be retained, and that’s where Musson Cattell Mackey’s Cactus Club Café was built once their design for the office tower was complete.
0686
Changing Vancouver 