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Petition raises concerns over future of Brickhouse

Potential Chinatown redevelopment could affect neighbourhood bar, student residence
brickhouse
Chinatown properties stretching from 728 to 796 Main Street may be redeveloped. Photo Dan Toulgoet

An online petition to save the Brickhouse building at 730 Main St. in Chinatown has emerged even though a rezoning application referencing the site has yet to be filed with the City of Vancouver.

The petition raises concerns about the building’s future because the property is part of a possible application to redevelop properties from 728 to 796 Main Street.

The petition, which links to a recent Vancouver Sun article by John Mackie (“The heritage battle for Chinatown”), states: “Don’t let new condos flatten the Brickhouse.”

It had been signed by more than 540 people as of Nov. 27.

“Vancouver is drowning in an ocean of copy-and-paste corporate chain bars. The Brickhouse is a great independent bar, but now it could be demolished to make way for a new condo development in Chinatown. The Creekside Student Residence and Jimi Hendrix shrine could be taken out with it,” the petition reads. “Please sign now to call for Vancouver’s mayor and council to stop the demolition of the Brickhouse and start a real consultation with the Chinatown community to ensure that new developments don’t threaten to strip the character of the community and drive more people out of the market.”

Bonnis Development owns the Brickhouse property, as well as vacant land beside it.

The building at 796 Main St. — Creekside Student Residence — is designated under the City of Vancouver’s single-room-accommodation bylaw and contains 22 designated SRA units. That site includes another small building at 207 Union Street — the Jimi Hendrix Shrine building.

“We have an agreement with the current owner, but we do not own [the property] as of today,” Kerry Bonnis, principle of Bonnis Development, told the Courier.

The city says the buildings in question date from the early 1900s but are not on the Vancouver Heritage Register.

Since the Creekside Student Residence units are designated under the SRA bylaw, the city’s objective is for one-to-one replacement, which is subject to a council decision. Under the rezoning policy for Chinatown South, a height of up to 150 feet could be considered for a redevelopment.

A preliminary rendering of the potential project is posted on the Studio One Architecture website with a write-up that states it could feature a commercial component at grade, single-resident accommodation units on the second level and 148 market units on the 14 floors above.

Bonnis said that rendering is not an exact rendition of what might happen. Bonnis Development in talks with the city about what might be possible.

“We’ve been in discussions with the city about the potential to redevelop the properties. We’ve been making multiple proposals to the city, so the incarnation that’s on the [Studio One Architecture] website doesn’t reflect entirely what we’re shooting for,” Bonnis explained.

“It’s been refined. I guess, in spirit, that’s what we’re shooting for, if possible. If we can reach an agreement with the city, then it may look something like that, but [these are] preliminary drawings and renderings, more to do with the massing and the envelope. It’s not entirely fully refined. Should we be successful with negotiations with the city, we definitely want to refine the building greater in terms of what the community would like to see there. And the city, and us as developers and architects collectively, we want elements of historic Chinatown to be incorporated into that.”

Bonnis said he’d like to try and maintain components of the Brickhouse.

“We would try to see if we could re-utilize any parts of the façade, but at this point it boils down to, truly, numbers — is the project as envisioned viable, feasible. Until we get more concrete analysis and answers in our negotiations, until then, it’s all sort of in flux,” he said, adding the public will be consulted although he’s not yet sure how the city would go about it.

“We’re all about working with the community and trying to revitalize communities. My brother [Dino] and I — he’s my partner 50/50 — we were born and raised in Vancouver and I’ve been going to Chinatown since I was a kid. I have a lot of nostalgic feelings towards the community and any project [is] going to listen to the city’s needs and [to] the community. We can work together collectively and hopefully, basically, enhance what’s there and get Chinatown back to the glory days and even surpass that. That would be our goal.”

noconnor@vancourier.com

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