This contemporary building (when it was completed in 1974) represented a sign of success for Gastown. The picture was taken some time in the early 1980s; The entire block had been threatened with total annihilation only a few years earlier. Designed by Henriquez and Todd for Marathon Realty, it filled a hole in Water Street that would have seen this block developed as part of a wall of huge contemporary buildings for Project 200, the massive redevelopment that dated from the early 1960s. (Here’s how that project looked in the late 1960s brochures).

Some of the buildings were to be apartments, there was a hotel, and obviously office space as well – including 200 Granville Street, the only tower actually built as part of the plan. While much of the construction would have taken place on elevated decks over the rail tracks (and a waterfront freeway extension), the 100 block of Water Street would have gone as well. The development partnership started buying up land in anticipation of the project proceeding – which is why Marathon (one of the partners in the project) ended up owning this site.

Project 200 was officially presented to City Council in 1966 (although it had been around longer, and was well known by councillors), and while some versions of history suggest it was the fierce opposition to the scale of the project, or the effect on Strathcona and Chinatown of the freeways that cut through those areas that sank it, really it was the exploding costs and a failure to agree on financing between the Federal and Provincial levels of government.

Once momentum was lost, a change in party control in Vancouver to TEAM ensured it wouldn’t return. Marathon Realty, CP Rail’s development arm ended up with this site, and with no prospect of a mega-tower, commissioned a more scale-appropriate project, with a courtyard, office and retail. The design was a contemporary interpretation of the bay windows found down the street, with a warm brick finish to match the warehouses. The screen of the façade had a gravity-defying extension beyond the flank wall.

The stairs that climb up inside the western end of the interior courtyard (on the left of the picture) were originally intended to be the entrance to a bridge that spanned the tracks to a new government-funded Fisherman’s Wharf style market on the waterfront. That idea was dropped when the even more radical Granville Island idea emerged, with Minister Ron Basford ensuring Federal funds (and control) to make it happen. That leaves a small coffee shop at the end of a flight of stairs with a great view over the rail tracks – if the freight cars aren’t blocking it.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 800-4922

0464

Advertisement

Here’s a 1925 postcard by Frank Gowan of the north side of the 100 block of Pender Street. Many of the buildings are still the same today, although one has been effectively rebuilt (although you would hardly notice at first glance).

The Lee Building is in the centre of the image; the central arcaded ‘Chinese style’ building. It was built in 1907 or 1908 by the Lee Lung Sai Business Company, although there’s no record of who designed it. This was a ‘family association’, but seems to have been purely a money-making venture rather than a family support building. It was one of the earliest Chinatown family buildings, and all the money raised to build the structure was provided by people with the name Lee. While many of the Chinese family buildings had accommodation and a hall for meetings, the Lee building only held a small office for the organisation’s own use, with the rest of the space leased out.

Around 1920 the building was sold to Lee Bick, (Ron Bick Lee) and his family still owned the property in 1971 when all the buildings in the picture were recognised with heritage status as part of the area’s historic area designation. The building was occupied over the years by a number of importers, retail merchants, restaurants, and clan associations. Lee arrived in Victoria at the age of 18 in 1910, working at a local restaurant in Victoria’s Chinatown.  He moved to Vancouver in 1916, working in various restaurants, hotels and import stores. Lee opened the Foo Hung Company in the Lee Building in 1921 and the import-export business went so well that he expanded into the greenhouse business, operating the Grandview Greenhouse on 50 acres in East Vancouver during the Depression. Lee was actively involved in the community through different associations, including the Chinese Public School, the Lee Association, Chinatown Lion’s Club and the Toi San Benevolent Society.

A year after the heritage designation the Lee Building was almost completely destroyed in a fire, and Robert Lee decided to rebuild. The city’s Historic Area Advisory Board initially advocated reconstruction but then, because of building code constraints, accepted the restoration of the facade as a free-standing frame and the construction of a new building behind it, which was completed in 1973 to designs by Henriquez and Todd. Today the facade has a modern building behind it (set back so that it resembles the balconies of the original structure), an open courtyard fronting the third bay of the building on the west side, with parking space off the rear lane.

The arcaded building to the west of the Lee Building is the 1921 Wong’s Benevolent Association building. There was a 2-storey building here in 1910 (and some reports suggest 1904), but in 1921 two more floors were added, designed by J A Radford, (G A Southall and W H Chow are both also associated with the rebuilt design). From the mid 1920s the Mon Keang School was in the building, providing language lessons to the Canadian-born children of the Chinese community.

The narrower building to the east of the Lee Building was designed in 1923 by A E Henderson for Lung Kong Kung Shaw, replacing one designed by W H Chow in 1914. Closer still is the 5-storey 1913 building designed by H B Watson for William Dick. Originally four floors high with the Kwong Fong grocery on the ground floor, the Mah Society acquired the building in 1920 and added a fifth floor in 1921 designed by E J Boughen.

0245