SROs, shelter on Downtown Eastside to be remade into mixed-use property
EVAN DUGGAN
The Vancouver Sun
The City of Vancouver is seeking public feedback on a redesign of public space in the Downtown Eastside’s historic Blood Alley Square and Trounce Alley.
The project will also have Westbank Corp. and B.C. Housing convert a derelict shelter and singleroom occupancy hotel backed by the alley into a new mixed-use property that will include social housing, market rental apartments and commercial spaces.
The area is currently home to two historic Downtown Eastside hotels in disrepair — the Stanley and New Fountain hotels at 27 West Cordova and 36 Blood Alley. The property now comprises a 78-unit single-room occupancy hotel and a 56-bed shelter operated by the PHS Community Services Society.
“The buildings are in really poor condition, and it was right for redevelopment,” said B.C. Housing CEO Shayne Ramsay. “This is about improving 78 crappy SRO rooms and replacing them with self-contained suites.”
He said the project is a publicprivate partnership between Ian Gillespie’s Westbank Corp. and B.C. Housing, which now owns the property after purchasing it for $2 million from Gillespie — the same figure he paid the City of Vancouver for the property in 2013 after a purchase option from PHS.
“Our expectation is the construction will start late this year, or spring of 2017, with completion targeted for early 2019,” Ramsay said in an interview last week. He said the shelter would be relocated to a refurbished site on East Hastings, while the SRO residents would also be relocated to other PHS homes in the area.
Henriquez Partners Architects has applied to the City of Vancouver for permission to develop the 33.5-metre-tall structure, which would have two tower components rising seven and 11 storeys above street level, including a common commercial podium. Ramsay said the project would include 80 units of social housing and 134 rental market apartments.
He said B.C. Housing is financing the construction of the buildings. “Westbank has the option to purchase back both the market rental building and the commercial space,” Ramsay said.
Profits from the rental apartments would help subsidize the social housing units that would be rented for a so-called shelter rate.
“All of these 80 units will be rented out at $375 a month, that’s the shelter component of income assistance,” Ramsay said. “That means that folks who are on income assistance, they get $375 to pay for their shelter, and this is exactly pegged at that level.”
Westbank declined to make anyone available for an interview. But Gillespie, Westbank’s founder and president, told The Sun last June that he wants to build a 15,000-square-foot music hall in the basement of the development, called Blood Alley.
He said the name is inspired by the property’s backside — the gritty, treed square that is owned by the city and now slated for an upgrade.
Gillespie said he wanted to see small, low-rent businesses as tenants on the street front instead of high-end retailers.
On June 1 and 4, the city hosted open-houses in Blood Alley Square where locals talked to city staff and looked at information placards explaining the history of the area and the pressing need for upgrades. Some visitors filled out questionnaires from the city that sought feedback and ideas for the redesign.
“The Downtown Eastside plan identified the work in Blood Alley Square and Trounce Alley as a priority,” said Karen Hoese, the city’s acting assistant director of planning for the downtown area. “There was a bunch of work done back in 2010 and there were some concept designs done at that time,” she said, calling the open house a starting-off point.
“At this point we’re also looking to hear what the public wants. We’ve heard that we need a gathering space for the neighbourhood,” she said. “We’ve heard a lot from the businesses about the elimination of the commercial dumpsters in the lane.”
The alley is also home to a handful of trendy eateries and shops. Hoese said those businesses also need to be heard from before big decisions get made on the space. She said the goal is to repair and upgrade the square while respecting and retaining its heritage character.
Construction of the Blood Alley redesign would begin in March of 2018, if funding and city council approval is secured.
The redevelopment by Westbank of the nearby Woodward’s building is a good example of how blended social and market housing could work, said Gastown resident Sean Orr at the open house on June 1.
“I’m more concerned with doing it sensitively,” said Orr, who works at L’Abbatoir on Carrall Street, which has a dumpster in the alley. “I’ve talked to a few people and they said a few of the right key words like managing the diverse groups that are already here, and integrating it and making it safer for everyone.”
The alley redesign “needs to be both accommodating to everyone, but also a safe place to do business and spend time,” he said. Shirley Wiebe, a resident of the area, stopped by the open house to fill out a questionnaire. “I’ve lived here for five years,” she said. “I just wanted to come down and actually see and hear a little more.”
She supported the concept but said it’s important to bring in commercial tenants who are small, independent businesses connected to the neighbourhood.
“Something unique, maybe smaller items; handmade,” she said. “A lot of people do walk here, people who are visiting Vancouver — the ones who venture off Water Street — so I think it should be distinctly different than what’s available on Water Street, which is very very touristy and not made in Canada.”
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