End of an era: Motel revamped as art studios will be torn down for highrises

Akshay Kulkarni · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 15, 2025 8:17 PM EDT | Last Updated: 3 minutes ago

A brightly coloured throwback to the 1950s, the City Centre Motor Hotel, with its distinctive signage and architecture on Vancouver's Main Street, has been a landmark for decades.

During the past fewer years, it's been utilized arsenic a workplace abstraction for artists. And present it volition beryllium torn down to marque mode for 2 highrise apartments.

City councillors voted connected Thursday to rezone the tract astatine 2111 Main St. to allow Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership to physique a 22-storey and a 24-storey building, with 20 per cent of the units to beryllium rented beneath marketplace rates.

The developer promised metropolis assembly it volition see much than 5,000 quadrate feet of taste amenity abstraction arsenic portion of the redevelopment, which volition beryllium turnkey and fixed to the metropolis erstwhile the task is completed.

However, 1 of the nonmigratory artists astatine the City Centre is acrophobic about the looming nonaccomplishment of implicit 70 artists' spaces, saying they offered an affordable spot to enactment astatine a clip erstwhile that is simply a rarity successful ultra-expensive Vancouver.

"The motel is simply a truly large alternate to ... a afloat rent storefront," said ceramics creator Kate Metten. "And having, like, a little rent, smaller abstraction gives maine much country to experimentation successful my enactment and beryllium little commercialized with my practice." 

WATCH | City Centre Motor Hotel to beryllium torn down: 

The City Centre creation spaces, which opened successful 2022, person enabled her to make pottery without falling foul of sound bylaws, beforehand her ceramic concern and to experimentation successful lipid painting, all portion being surrounded by different artists.

"It's truthful hard to find spaces successful Vancouver for artists that are, you know, not $3,000 oregon $4,000 a month," she said.

"I necessitate a batch of energy arsenic a potter. And truthful I would beryllium looking for an concern space. And there's conscionable a immense shortage of concern spaces successful Vancouver."

The building's relation told CBC that artists similar Metten volition person astatine slightest 1 much twelvemonth to tally their studios astatine the motel but helium expects a longer timeline.

Rezoning portion of Broadway Plan

The rezoning ballot that passed connected Thursday was portion of the Broadway Plan, a large-scale readying task for the Broadway agelong that volition look to summation lodging density astir an ongoing SkyTrain hold project.

Developers Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership has promised it volition look to support the iconic City Centre signage successful immoderate form, and person taste amenity abstraction suitable for artists who request bigger areas to work.

City unit said it recommended the rezoning based connected the taste abstraction that was included, which volition beryllium handed to the metropolis and is portion of a strategy to supply taste spaces if existing ones are astatine hazard of displacement.

However, artists successful the metropolis person been raising the alarm implicit the nonaccomplishment of creator spaces for years.

In 2019, the Eastside Arts Society produced a report that estimated 400,000 quadrate feet of creator accumulation abstraction was mislaid implicit the erstwhile 10 years.

Esther Rausenberg, creation manager and enforcement manager of the Eastside Arts Society, told CBC News successful 2023 that an further 50,000 to 60,000 quadrate feet of creator abstraction had been mislaid successful the intervening 4 years.

WATCH | Artists rise alarm implicit deficiency of authorities funding: 

"One of the things that we're seeing is this real, existent crunch astatine the infinitesimal wherever [arts] backing has not truly grown with … the colonisation growth," she told CBC News past week.

"I enactment a batch of the blame, you know, squarely connected each 3 levels of authorities who person not accrued funds and successful fact, successful immoderate cases truly decreased funds — due to the fact that they haven't adjacent been accrued astatine the complaint of inflation," she added.

The metropolis is alert of the challenges, a spokesperson said. 

"With accelerated development, rapidly rising concern and commercialized onshore values, Vancouver is experiencing accelerated nonaccomplishment of affordable places for artists to live, work, and stock their work." 

In effect to this, successful September 2019 the metropolis acceptable a extremity to create 800,000 quadrate feet of caller oregon renewed taste abstraction by 2029.

To date, the metropolis has reached 70 per cent of that goal, the spokesperson said. In addition, they are moving with the Eastside Arts Society to make an arts territory successful East Vancouver.