How Woodward's worked its magic
Visionary Jim Green predicts area's most derelict block will be sparkling by 2012
David Carrigg
Province
Tuesday, October, 06, 2009
There's a reason Jim Green chose a sixth-floor, east-facing office in the Dominion Building from which to launch his post-political consulting career.
"I wanted this space so I could look at Woodward's," said Green, sitting in a work space cluttered with books, art and memorabilia from four decades as a Downtown Eastside social housing developer, politician and powerbroker.
"Woodward's is something that's gathered attention around the world. It represents diversity and inclusion. There's a thesis being done on it. One book's been written [Toward an Ethical Architecture] and another [Body Heat] is being released."
The thesis, by University of Chicago student Naomi Bratz, is bolstered by work being done by visiting students from the Goethe Institute in Frankfurt, Germany.
Green drove the resurrection of Woodward's when he was elected to council with Vision Vancouver in 2003. A rabbit warren of additions sprouting from the original 1903 Woodward's store at Hastings and Abbott, which had closed in 1993 and sat derelict, had led to retail collapse all around.
Vancouver taxpayers bought Woodward's from the provincial government in 2003 and council chose a developer on the condition the new project respected the social makeup of the Downtown Eastside. Construction of the two towers began in 2006 and in August, the first suite owners moved in.
The project's key is its mix of 536 high-end and moderately priced condos with 225 units of social housing for families and the hard-to-house, on top of a pharmacy, grocery store, bank, coffee shop, dentist's office, sandwich shop and a pub.
Rounding out the list of tenants are Simon Fraser University's Contemporary Arts Centre, several non-profit spaces, a daycare, the City of Vancouver's cultural staff and the Vancouver office of the National Film Board.
After Green lost his mayoral bid to Sam Sullivan in 2006, he was hired by the Woodward's developer to make sure all the promises to the community were upheld -- most importantly, to make sure local residents are trained and employed in Woodward's construction and businesses and that those businesses source what they can locally, including labour and supplies.
Green is impressed, but not surprised, that every retail space in the project is filled.
"That's extremely rare in this area," he said, noting the nearby International Village has struggled for years to retain retail tenants.
The impact of this month's opening of Woodward's businesses and the 4,000 people a day expected to be in and around the development will be felt immediately on the south side of the 100-block of West Hastings.
Right now, that block has the worst storefront vacancy rate of any in Vancouver and has been an eyesore since Woodward's closed.
Green predicts all those storefronts will be occupied by 2012. In fact, it's likely there's nowhere else in the city that will change as swiftly as the 100-block West Hastings over the next three years.
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Dave Schmidt has been in business on that block for seven years, outlasting every other retailer that has taken the risk of operating on the sketchiest block in town.
Schmidt moved his fabric wholesaling business into a storefront at 150 West Hastings because of the low rent. At the time, he was only wholesaling, so wasn't reliant on street trade. Three years ago, he opened the shop to off-street customers.
"We were running out of room and wanted cheaper rent," he said. "I knew it was bad but I didn't have a storefront then. I've been here the longest on the block. I've seen the pawn shops come and go. There's the Victory Food Market [166 West Hastings] but it's had different owners."
Schmidt has noticed major improvement in the past six months.
"It is not as bad as it used to be," he said. "There used to be people shooting up and peeing all day long. There used to be dealers all the way up the street. They're not here now and the number of customers I am getting off the street has gone up."
The alley behind the south side of the 100-block is now also cleaner than the sidewalk, due to intense city cleaning efforts and addicts moving a few blocks east.
Three years ago, the laneway was as bad as the notorious alley alongside the Carnegie Centre at Main and Hastings.
Schmidt recently renegotiated the lease on his shopfront and is now paying more. He expects his rent to continue to rise as the area improves further.
The building Schmidt is in is fully leased. It was purchased by BumbleBee Investments for $440,000 in March 2004, according to government records. The building is now worth $900,000, meaning the BumbleBee investment has doubled in six years.
The block is full of real-estate winners, none more so than the owner of 108/110 West Hastings. According to government records, the building was bought in July 2005 for $230,000 and is now assessed at $900,000.
In six years, 134/136 West Hastings has gone from a March 2003 sale for $265,000 to an assessed value of $863,000. The building is tenanted by a new Money Mart.
The most valuable building on the block is 198 West Hastings, valued at almost $5 million, which is at Hastings and Cambie. It is owned by Millennium Estate Holdings and was bought for just over $2 million in February 1997.
At 116 Hastings, the owner of the Golden Crown Hotel is in a scrap with the Downtown Eastside Residents Association and the city over attempts to evict tenants in the $425-a-month rooms for renovations -- dubbed (by John-Ward Leighton, activist blogger) "renovictions." The Golden Crown has vacant retail space at street level.
Three side-by-side buildings in the middle of the 100-block are being extensively renovated and are expected to come online in 2010.
Leighton is not happy to see the area gentrified, but is glad the buildings on the block will likely now be saved.
"There's a lot of history in those buildings, but they are falling down," Leighton said. "The city should put pressure on them to clean them up. But from their point of view, they don't have to do anything. They are just waiting."
Green said that when he was in city hall he was working on a proposal that would have led to property owners of decrepit building being forced to pay higher property taxes. He never got a chance to push that agenda, but is now focused on doing whatever he can to stop the owners of buildings opposite Woodward's from trying to gouge their existing and potential retail tenants.
"Being greedy doesn't mean you're smart. You can't charge the same price as Woodward's," he said.
For all the excitement, Green cautions there'll be a three-year wait before Woodward's will be established in the area.
"I saw with Four Sisters [a housing project] it always takes at least a year before things settle in. For Woodward's, it will be three years because of its scale. In three years it will be totally functioning at a high level. It will be a different neighbourhood. The locals will be here, but the storefronts will be occupied. It will be a cultural magnet."
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