Report recommends adding Waldorf Hotel to Vancouver Heritage Register
A report set to go before city council next week recommends that the Waldorf Hotel be added to the Vancouver Heritage Register.
Based on a heritage assessment of the site on East Hastings Street, city staff are also recommending that work continue with the current and new owner of the building to “explore redevelopment scenarios that incorporate the site’s recognized heritage resources”.
The report follows a decision by city council on January 15 to issue a 120-day protection order for the site while the assessment took place.
Waldorf Productions, the former operators of the facility, ceased programming on January 20. The group has since formed the creative and arts agency Arrival.
A statement of significance on the heritage value of the Waldorf site prepared by Birmingham and Wood Architects and Planners cites factors including the hotel’s 1949 and 1950s exterior and interior detailing, and the building’s “social and cultural significance”.
“The Waldorf is notable as being a location for new and emerging ideas such as its modernism when it was built, the exotic ambiance of its 1955 Polynesian interiors, and through its history as a place where unique social scenes fostered,” the staff report reads. “Most recently it was well-known for its diverse cultural activities and programming.”
Staff are recommending that the site be listed in the “C” evaluation category under the Vancouver Heritage Register. Buildings under this category are recognized as contributing to the historic character of an area or streetscape.
The inclusion in the registry means that a development permit must be granted before any potential demolition can take place.
“These provisions allow property owners and staff to review options and consider alternatives that may include building retention or not,” the report reads.
No rezoning or development permit application has yet been made for the site. The current owner of the Waldorf Hotel, the Puharich family, has a sale agreement in place with Solterra Development that is set to end in the fall. Solterra has indicated it has “no objection” to the Waldorf Hotel being added to the heritage register.
The site where the Waldorf Hotel is located is part of the Grandview Woodland community planning process. That plan is expected to go before city council before the end of this year.
Councillors will vote on the recommendations next Wednesday (May 15).
Comments
6 Comments
John-Albert Eadie
May 8, 2013 at 8:52pm
OF COURSE. I love the Waldorf! Vancouver should be more understanding of its own (declining) beauty!
Emmy
May 8, 2013 at 10:03pm
Yet the 2400 Motel still has the threat of demolition hanging over it. Can we save them both even though one doesn't have a hipster pedigree?
Andrew
May 9, 2013 at 10:33am
Any heritage designation has a corresponding tradeoff. How much height and density are the owners expected to request when they likely development the rest of the site? (or more aptly put: how much density will the city give the developers?) There's no clarity on key issue.
Oh Gawd
May 9, 2013 at 2:43pm
... let it go already.
Dan
May 10, 2013 at 10:45am
I had to laugh when, elsewhere, I saw that some of the specific wording about the supposed significance of the Waldorf was its, "original Polynesian style" items from the 1950s. "Original" Polynesian "style"? Isn't that just many words meaning, taken together "fake" and "tacky"?
Let's take a step back and remember: What we are talking about is a Tiki Bar built just sixty years ago. Neither the place nor the items in it have any particular historical significance.
My view is that anything recent enough to have come back around as hip/retro/ironic is not old enough to be historic. (Rather the opposite; the only reason it is being stuck on this list is because it is the flavour of the month.) If someone is really really into cheaply made, fake knock-offs of other people's cultures, well then they can take those items and keep them some place, by all means. But don't come in and try to pretend they are so important to our society in any factual way that we should be telling the owners of the place what they can and cannot do with it. There may be other reasons to do that, but this is not one of them.
Bryn
May 16, 2013 at 7:01am
I think the city needs some sort of designation around "performance venues". What makes the Waldorf special is its unique ability to host 4+ different live events at once in a small space. The actual architecture on the outside is hideous, but the building's internal layout is definitely something that you won't find elsewhere.
Really the place is only worth anything if it is operating as a performance venue - that's what makes it special. Somehow the city needs to find a way to recognize venue space and to ensure that it is preserved in a functional operating manner. The Waldorf won't do anyone any good as an empty building.
The "Heritage" designation here is being used to preserve the structure where what we really need is a way of preserving the actual USE of the building instead.