We looked at this part of West Hastings, where the Woodward’s store once occupied most of the block, in an earlier post. That showed the street in 1904, when Woodward’s store was only 4 storeys high on the corner of Abbott. Here we can see the 1923 street, and there’s an addition to the west (built in 1913), as well as two more upper floors. That wasn’t the end of the company’s expansion here. By 1981 (below) there had been further additions to the west, and further floors added on top. W T Whiteway was the architect of the $60,000 1904 building on the right, a four storey ‘brick and stick’ construction (a heavy wooden frame with a brick facade). A few years later Smith and Goodfellow designed the $35,000 vertical addition (in 1910). Three years later the store got the further addition, a $100,000 westwards extension designed by George Wenyon with a steel and concrete frame.

There was still a Woolworths store next to Woodward’s in 1981. It had been developed by the company in 1926 at a cost of $33,000, built by Dixon and Murray, and Woolworth’s may have had their own architect to design it. Previously we think there was a building that had been owned by Crowe & Wilson, who employed Bedford Davidson to carry out repairs and alterations in the late 1910s and early 1920s. They were significant developers in the area and had developed another building, the Selkirk Block, a bit further to the west, and visible on the top picture.

The Woodward’s redevelopment (designed by Henriquez Partners for Westbank) retained the wood-frame building on the corner of Abbott, but all the other buildings were demolished in 2006, after sitting empty since Woodward’s went bankrupt in 1993. The 1903 building now had added concrete reinforcement on the western facade to give the old frame seismic stability, while the bricks were tied back and the original lettering faithfully restored after being covered in layers of paint for decades. New retail uses including a TD Bank now sit underneath office space. Further west the new part of the project here includes non-market housing and Simon Fraser University’s Arts campus over a London Drugs store.

Image sources: City of Vancouver Archives CVA Str N49.2 and CVA 779-E16.27

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We featured an image of the Woodward’s store on the corner of Abbott and Cordova in an earlier post (over three years ago). Here are two more – the first a Vancouver Public Library image dating back to 1903 when W T Whiteway’s first building for Charles Woodward (in this location) was just complete. Actually, it wasn’t just Charles’s store: he started out on Westminster Avenue (Main Street today) but partnered with a jeweller, a crockery store and a boot and shoe storekeeper to expand into the much bigger new building in what Woodward believed would one day be a more central location. When he bought the site for $25,000 it was less promising: ‘at one corner of the lot was a deep hollow, a swamp eight feet below the elevation of the sidewalk, wherein grew huge yellow skunk cabbages and bull-frogs abounded. The wooden sidewalk was built on stilts on a level with the street. Across the road was a cistern for use by fire-fighters. “People forgot” said Charles, “that the hollow saved a lot of excavating and reduced expenses and the drain which was put in by the city took care of the swamp“‘. The Woodward’s family biography records that because the contractor offering the lowest cost was considered to be ‘anti-union’ the building took over a year to complete; for example the stone for the foundation had to be shipped from the US by scow as supplies couldn’t be obtained in British Columbia. Charles finally negotiated with the local Labour party executive, showed them that the next tender was $7,000 higher, and persuaded them to drop their obstruction to his building. (E Cook was the contractor of the $60,000 building). A month after the store opened the BC Electric Railway company decided to run a streetcar up Hastings, from Main to Cambie, confirming the value of the location.

The gamble to expand so dramatically initially looked like it hadn’t paid off. In early 1904 the store had lost $7,000 to $8,000 in its first three months of operation. It was over-stocked with expensive but slow-selling merchandize like diamonds and china. A Receiver was appointed at a cost of $5,000 who fond the store had $199,500 of assets and $89,000 in liabilities, and recommended that the firm should be allowed credit from the Bank of British North America at an interest rate of 6% to pay off trade creditors and allow the firm to trade out of their precarious position. The directors fell out even more; led by jeweler Cicero Davidson (who had his jewelers store nearby, and lived on the west side, on Burrard Street).

They tried to get Charles Woodward to resign as Manager; he resolved to continue in control and to buy them out. He sold his original Main Street premises for cash, paid off the mortgage on the building and had enough left over to buy out the Davidson Brothers and T B Hyndman, another director. (He was running the crockery department of rival store R G Buchanan Co in 1901; we recorded some of his history in connection to his later Canada Hotel investment).

Over the next few years Charles Woodward managed the store, paid off the creditors, the mortgage and eventually a $30,000 bank loan that had kept the store solvent. He added two additional storeys in 1910, designed by Smith and Goodfellow. Architect Sholto Smith had married the youngest Woodward daughter, Cora (who hated her given name, and was known as Peg), and he also designed the company stables as well as the store’s vertical extension. The arched window in the centre bay of the original building was rebuilt so that it didn’t look odd on a middle floor of the larger building.

This 1981 view shows that the Woodward’s store continued to grow over the years. George Wenyon designed an addition in 1913 to the west of the original store. H W Postle designed an addition in 1925 along Abbott and Cordova, while W T Whiteway was responsible for several elements added to his 1903 store over nearly 30 years (including the parking garage in 1930). By 1981 the business had expanded to 21 stores, but the flagship Downtown store had already faced declining business once the Pacific Centre had opened on Granville. The 1980s saw the entire business facing challenges; the family relinquished control in 1989, and the Downtown store store closed in 1993. It took nearly 20 years and several false starts before a City of Vancouver initiated redevelopment, (hustled by Jim Green) designed by Henriquez Partnership for Westbank saw the original corner store reconstructed and the remainder of the site redeveloped.

Image source: Vancouver Public Library and Peter B Clibbon

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We’ve already referenced the Wilson Block on the corner, owned by real estate broker W B Wilson. He had a series of important tenants including Rand Bros real estate (who initially set the development of the Alhambra Hotel going before George Byrnes took it on), a barrister, D S Wallbridge and the Vancouver Gas Co (C D Rand secretary-treasurer).

The building behind it, up Abbott Street is the first Metropole Hotel, built in 1892 to N S Hoffar’s design for English investors Town and Robinson. For 1894 and 1895 there’s an odd Directory entry “Hotel Metropole vacant” but by 1898 Hodson and Dempsey are proprietors, and in 1900 when this VPL photograph was taken William Hodson was the proprietor, and George Parker was the Manager.

By 1904 Woodward’s Department store had been established on the vacant lot on the corner of West Hastings, next to the Hotel Metropole (at that time managed by Atkins and Johnson) . The Hotel remained standing until 1924 when Woodwards expanded southward, and the Metropole name transferred to an existing hotel, the Travellers Hotel on the opposite side of the street. W T Whiteway designed the 1903 4-storey Woodwards building, and Smith and Goodfellow the vertical expansion of Woodwards in 1910. Today’s heritage restoration was designed by Henriquez Partners as well as the 32 storey tower on the corner.

 

Here’s a Vancouver Sun image dated to 1908 that shows the 1903 store with its new addition on the Abbott and West Hastings corner and the restored (and seismically rebuilt) Woodwards building, now used as offices and a childcare. The Metropole Hotel can be seen a bit further down Abbott Street. As the addition by Smith and Goodfellow wasn’t added until 1910, the image must really date from at least then.

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