{"id":216,"date":"2019-06-04T21:05:10","date_gmt":"2019-06-04T21:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/w43.ca\/?page_id=216"},"modified":"2019-06-04T21:05:10","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T21:05:10","slug":"woodwards-district","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/w43.ca\/?page_id=216","title":{"rendered":"Woodward’s District"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Woodward’s Building was a historic building in the Downtown Eastside <\/g>of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The original portion of the building was constructed in 1903 for the Woodward’s Department Store when<\/g> that area of Cordova Street was the heart of Vancouver’s retail <\/g>shopping district. At one time this was the premier shopping destination in Vancouver. The store was famous for its Christmas window displays and its basement Food Floor, and the “W” sign at the top of the building<\/g> was a distinctive landmark on the Vancouver skyline. Since the bankruptcy of Woodward’s in 1993 the building remained vacant except for a housing occupation in 2002 that initiated the redevelopment process. The redevelopment was seen by many as a key to revitalizing the Downtown Eastside, but the demolition of the structure in 2006 and redevelopment of the site has been met with much local resistance from the existing residents of the neighborhood. In 2003 the City of Vancouver, led by City Council member Jim Green, purchased the building from the province for $5 million, and began a public consultation process, asking the community what they wanted from the redevelopment. After a two-stage competition between three developers in September 2004, the city selected Westbank Projects\/Peterson Investment Group to develop the project together with the architecture firm of Henriquez Partners lead by Gregory Henriquez and structural engineers Glotman Simpson Consulting Engineers. The 400 million dollars, nearly one million square foot project, includes 536 market housing units, 125 singles non-market housing units to be operated by PHS Community Services, 75 family non-market housing units to be operated by Affordable Housing Society, Nesters Market, London Drugs, TD Canada Trust, the National Film Board of Canada and civic offices, a daycare, public atrium and plaza, and a new 130,000 square foot addition to Simon Fraser University’s downtown campus, the SFU School for Contemporary Arts. The market housing units constructed in the building feature both modern-look finishes and vintage analog thermostats. The oldest part of the complex (built 1903\u20131908) was restored, and serves as a non-profit office and community space (31,500 sf), with tenants including W2 Community Media Arts. The development permit for construction was issued on January 26, 2007, and while substantial completion was scheduled for June 2010, delays pushed that completion date back to September 2010. The “W” neon sign, which topped the building on the Eiffel Tower replica, was removed before the demolition. and was replicated and re-installed on January 9, 2010, now boasting energy-saving LED lights. The original W is now displayed in the open area next to The Charles Bar at the new Woodward’s Building. In 2008 the Vancouver artist Stan Douglas completed a 30′ by 50′ image on glass depicting the Gastown Riots of 1971. The over-sized photograph, together with a basketball hoop, has become the central focus within the atrium of the new Woodward’s Redevelopment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Woodward’s Building was a historic building in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The original portion of the building was constructed in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-216","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/w43.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/w43.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/w43.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/w43.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/w43.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/w43.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/w43.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}