CF Pacific Centre Developments

[officedweller]

I don't necessarily see it as the death of an icon, but I do see it as the erosion of the theme of alternating plazas down ceremonial Georgia St. (and Burrard St.).

Mind you, nowadays, plazas tend to be liabilities rather than beneficial spaces.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by officedweller

I don't necessarily see it as the death of an icon, but I do see it as the erosion of the theme of alternating plazas down ceremonial Georgia St. (and Burrard St.).
Mind you, nowadays, plazas tend to be liabilities rather than beneficial spaces.

That's an interesting statement. Could I ask you why that is?

[officedweller]

The demolition of the old Hotel Vancouver was apparently due to a restrictive covenant against hotel use or absent a covenant, just the desire of the then hotel operator (CP or JV of CP and CN or CN's predecessor) to prevent a competitor from opening up. (i.e. like how old Safeway-owned sites have restrictive covenants preventing future supermarket use).

Originally Posted by trofirhen

That's an interesting statement. Could I ask you why that is?

Just a thought due to the costs of maintaining security - due to protests, the homeless, vandalism, etc.

[TwoFace]

The Architectural Taliban wants everything torn down that doesn't resemble a box.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by TwoFace

The Architectural Taliban wants everything torn down that doesn't resemble a box.

Amen to that! Like the second Hotel Vancouver across the street on West Georgia back in the days. Guess what replaced it? A box and a urinal!

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Vin

Amen to that! Like the second Hotel Vancouver across the street on West Georgia back in the days. Guess what replaced it? A box and a urinal!

True - but a bit misleading.. The Second Hotel Vancouver was replaced by a surface parking lot for decades. Here it is in a late 1960s Vancouver Archives image. [larger image here]. The site had been vacant for 20 years - [1949 image here]. So the idea for the Pacific Centre came quite a bit later - the second hotel was torn down because the newer Hotel Vancouver was more than enough hotel for the modest city of the day, and after it had been used as temporary housing for the homeless, there wasn't any obvious use for it.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Changing City

True - but a bit misleading.. The Second Hotel Vancouver was replaced by a surface parking lot for decades. Here it is in a late 1960s Vancouver Archives image. [larger image here]. The site had been vacant for 20 years - [1949 image here]. So the idea for the Pacific Centre came quite a bit later - the second hotel was torn down because the newer Hotel Vancouver was more than enough hotel for the modest city of the day, and after it had been used as temporary housing for the homeless, there wasn't any obvious use for it.

That's very lousy reasoning not to protect a heritage structure, which didn't look modest at all. Also, it wasn't like Vancouver had many heritage buildings to begin with, and so letting it come down was indeed an atrocity. Maybe that's why Vancouver has become a provincial town it is today, because nobody ever thinks big, and whatever little we have, we just can't wait to get rid of them. Question for you: why build the third hotel when there is so little demand for room space?

Originally Posted by officedweller

The demolition of the old Hotel Vancouver was apparently due to a restrictive covenant against hotel use or absent a covenant, just the desire of the then hotel operator (CP or JV of CP and CN or CN's predecessor) to prevent a competitor from opening up. (i.e. like how old Safeway-owned sites have restrictive covenants preventing future supermarket use).



Just a thought due to the costs of maintaining security - due to protests, the homeless, vandalism, etc.

Surely the restrictive covenant was conceived and supported by shortsighted people? How archaic.


And now the demolition of the glass dome is even more shortsighted: to replace it with something even uglier and take away a very welcoming entance to the mall.

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by Vin

That's very lousy reasoning not to protect a heritage structure, which didn't look modest at all. Also, it wasn't like Vancouver had many heritage buildings to begin with, and so letting it come down was indeed an atrocity. Maybe that's why Vancouver has become a provincial town it is today, because nobody ever thinks big, and whatever little we have, we just can't wait to get rid of them.

The 2nd hotel existed for 33 years and no one wanted it. Vancouver wasn't really in the "save heritage buildings and make other people pay for it" mood back in 1949 dealing with a decade's old vacant building. It was eventually replaced by a mall...

Not sure if a post-modern glass dome could receive status simply as being the only design in town. Receiving a designation via by-law from the City without owner consent regularly entails that structure tells the city's lived and seen heritage. Not sure what the "newest" heritage designated and legally protected structure in the city is.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Vin

That's very lousy reasoning not to protect a heritage structure, which didn't look modest at all. Also, it wasn't like Vancouver had many heritage buildings to begin with, and so letting it come down was indeed an atrocity. Maybe that's why Vancouver has become a provincial town it is today, because nobody ever thinks big, and whatever little we have, we just can't wait to get rid of them. Question for you: why build the third hotel when there is so little demand for room space?

The second Hotel Vancouver wasn't a heritage building when it was demolished. It wasn't even very old. The part you are referencing was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway; opened in 1916, and closed in 1939. It was demolished in 1949.

The third Hotel Vancouver was started in 1928 by the Canadian Northern Railway, and was part of the deal that allowed that railway to build a station on the filled-in False Creek. It didn't open until 1939. In between there was a huge recession. By the time it was completed neither hotel was really viable - especially once the war started. CN and CP jointly ran the newer hotel, (the one standing today), and apart from using the slightly older building as a barracks, and to house homeless returning soldiers from the war, no further use was found for it.

Officedweller might be right about a restrictive covenant to prevent hotel use, although I've not seen that stated anywhere but on SSP. A 1948 newspaper article seems to contradict that statement: the site was bought by T Eaton and Co to build a modern departmental store. Pressed by the Board of Trade of the day to resell it, or remodel it as a hotel again, Eaton's said "no one is interested in its purchase". It seems unlikely that any hotel operator would have wanted to compete with the newer Hotel Vancouver and the equally new Hotel Georgia across the street, opened in 1932. Eaton's then took 20 years to get round to opening their new store - designed by Cesar Pelli at Victor Gruen & Co, considered at the time the best retail architects for malls in North America.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by TwoFace

The Architectural Taliban wants everything torn down that doesn't resemble a box.

I can't tell if this is satire or not.

[officedweller]

Pic by me today.

Georgia looks like its concrete base is in place.

[officedweller]

Just did a Google search and the prevention of competition may have been the agreement between CP and CN
to operate the 3rd Hotel Vancouver jointly, though I thought I read about not allowing another hotel on the site.
But then again, it may not have been a restrictive covenant on title, as I also recall seeing old plans for the Eaton's store that included a hotel on the roof.

Other articles mention poor construction and deterioration.

EDIT: Found it - in Donald Luxton's heritage review of the Eaton's Building for the redevelopment application.
The original IM Pei design for Eaton's (before Cesar Pelli reworked it) included a rooftop hotel,
so there wouldn't have been a restrictive covenant registered on title (at least for those parcels under the proposed hotel).


https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/commi...-granville.pdf

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Just did a Google search and the prevention of competition may have been the agreement between CP and CN
to operate the 3rd Hotel Vancouver jointly, though I thought I read about not allowing another hotel on the site. But then again, it may not have been a restrictive covenant on title, as I also recall seeing old plans for the Eaton's store that included a hotel on the roof.

Other articles mention poor construction and deterioration.

EDIT: Found it - in Donald Luxton's heritage review of the Eaton's Building for the redevelopment application. The original IM Pei design for Eaton's (before Cesar Pelli reworked it) included a rooftop hotel, so there wouldn't have been a restrictive covenant registered on title (at least for those parcels under the proposed hotel).

Thanks for digging that out and confirming that the restrictive covenant didn't exist. The times were hard, and one over-sized (for the time) fancy hotel was all the local economy could handle. The fact that bitter rivals CN and CP entered into a joint management deal shows how tough things were.

The old hotel may not have been well built - or at least well maintained. A demolition worker fell to his death in 1949 when a canopy collapsed - although the inquest fond he was supposed to be demolishing the elevator shaft, and shouldn't have been near the canopy. The gargoyles from the hotel were supposedly preserved and given to the Park Board to exhibit in Stanley Park. I don't think they survived.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Changing City

Thanks for digging that out and confirming that the restrictive covenant didn't exist. The times were hard, and one over-sized (for the time) fancy hotel was all the local economy could handle. The fact that bitter rivals CN and CP entered into a joint management deal shows how tough things were.

The old hotel may not have been well built - or at least well maintained. A demolition worker fell to his death in 1949 when a canopy collapsed - although the inquest fond he was supposed to be demolishing the elevator shaft, and shouldn't have been near the canopy. The gargoyles from the hotel were supposedly preserved and given to the Park Board to exhibit in Stanley Park. I don't think they survived.

Illustrated Vancouver did some research on it and it seems they were probably destroyed. A few went to the Vancouver Archives but they were in bad shape and not accepted.

https://illustratedvancouver.ca/post...l-vancouver-ii

[Vin]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Just did a Google search and the prevention of competition may have been the agreement between CP and CN
to operate the 3rd Hotel Vancouver jointly, though I thought I read about not allowing another hotel on the site.
But then again, it may not have been a restrictive covenant on title, as I also recall seeing old plans for the Eaton's store that included a hotel on the roof.

Other articles mention poor construction and deterioration.

EDIT: Found it - in Donald Luxton's heritage review of the Eaton's Building for the redevelopment application.
The original IM Pei design for Eaton's (before Cesar Pelli reworked it) included a rooftop hotel,
so there wouldn't have been a restrictive covenant registered on title (at least for those parcels under the proposed hotel).


https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/commi...-granville.pdf

From the rendering, it looks to me more like everyone was in a hurry to make this Canadian city look more American, as in USA. As a result, colonial heritage structures were summarily torn down. Again, decision makers, including City oversee-ers, were terribly short-sighted individuals.

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Illustrated Vancouver did some research on it and it seems they were probably destroyed. A few went to the Vancouver Archives but they were in bad shape and not accepted.
https://illustratedvancouver.ca/post...l-vancouver-ii

"In a bad shape". How come this phrase sounds so familiar? Ah, but of course, we have a tendency of neglecting older structures and let them slide into a state of disrepair, then paint a really bad picture before brainwashing simple-minded folks to get rid of them. Happens all the time here: the Viaducts would be a prime example.

[logan5]

I can imagine that in 1949, when the building was torn down, people had no idea how awful architecture was to become. If people back then could see the completely water down architecture of today, that hotel would have been saved.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by logan5

I can imagine that in 1949, when the building was torn down, people had no idea how awful architecture was to become. If people back then could see the completely water down architecture of today, that hotel would have been saved.

Yeah all the architecture pre-1949 was amazing.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Yeah all the architecture pre-1949 was amazing.

It was a hell of a lot better than it is today. Even a simple factory from back then looks a lot better than any similar sized structure built today.

https://goo.gl/maps/NNygGUVQVbypdHkM6

Actually, could you show me a picture of a building pre war that matches the ugliness of today?

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Vin

From the rendering, it looks to me more like everyone was in a hurry to make this Canadian city look more American, as in USA. As a result, colonial heritage structures were summarily torn down. Again, decision makers, including City oversee-ers, were terribly short-sighted individuals.

The hotel was closed in 1939, and eventually demolished in 1949. The IM Pei plans were drawn up in 1966, once Eatons brought Cadillac Fairview into the mix. Doesn't seem like anybody was in much of a hurry to do anything. However, it's good to have, on the record, that you would have prefered that they hadn't built the only Downtown mall that we have.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Changing City

The hotel was closed in 1939, and eventually demolished in 1949. The IM Pei plans were drawn up in 1966, once Eatons brought Cadillac Fairview into the mix. Doesn't seem like anybody was in much of a hurry to do anything. However, it's good to have, on the record, that you would have prefered that they hadn't built the only Downtown mall that we have.

Come on, if they were to preserve the original hotel building, the mall can go somewhere else, like any other cities in the world that respect their heritage structure do. I'd rather prefer it that way. I'm always amazed how you stick to the status quo like a dried up super glue.