An application seeking to rezone the lot at 2111 Main St. from industrial to comprehensive development goes to a public hearing on March 13.
Mount Pleasant’s City Centre Motor Hotel could soon be replaced by a new mixed-use complex with two towers of rental units, ground-floor shops and restaurants, and a new visual arts production space.
An application seeking to rezone the lot at Vancouver’s 2111 Main St. from industrial to comprehensive development goes to a public hearing on March 13.
Renderings depicting the future of the lot are included in the application from Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership, which details a plan for two towers, one at 22 storeys and the other at 24. Combined, the towers will offer 446 rental units, of which 87 would be secured for below-market rental.
The two towers would be separated by a publicly accessible breezeway (with “mural opportunities at grade”) that allows for pedestrian access between Main Street and the laneway, while ground-floor commercial space for restaurants, cafés and shops would face the breezeway and all street frontages.
The complex will also house five levels of underground parking and 5,820 square feet of cultural amenity space, replacing the current temporary arts space housed by the City Centre Motor Hotel.
“This proposed cultural amenity space would replace these temporary studios with new, long-term, affordable, shared, light-industrial, production space for visual artists to pursue their work within the vibrant Mount Pleasant community,” notes a report.
According to the report submitted to city council, the below-market rental units would be priced at 20 per cent below the city’s average market rent, whatever that may be at the time an occupancy permit is issued. The report uses 2023 data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which lists the city’s average market rent for a studio apartment as being $1,776, while the average rent for a three-bedroom is $3,245.
The lot — bound by Main Street, East 5th, East 6th and a rear lane, and home to the two-storey, 75-room motel — was bought by Nicola Wealth Real Estate in 2021 with plans for eventual redevelopment.
While planning was underway, the developer turned the property over to The Narrow Group — which also operates The Rickshaw Theatre and The Fox Cabaret — for temporary use as studio space featuring 79 low-cost, work-only artist studios.
The lot has also hosted various block parties and events over the years, such as the Vancouver Mural Festival, while the building itself was painted with eye-catching murals by Fiona Ackerman, K.C. Hall, and Joon Lee as part of the festival’s programming.
Dave Duprey, owner of The Narrow Group, applauded the developer for “their forward thinking and their risk taking” when they agreed to let him lease the motel for artists, even if only temporarily. Duprey said he’s been told the City Centre Artist Lodge will get at least another year of life, perhaps two.
“I think it’s been amazing that they’ve given me this opportunity to turn this into this fantastic arts space. Most developers wouldn’t have,” he said.
Once Duprey struck the deal with Nicola Wealth, he began renting out rooms to artists before seeking approval and licensing from the city.
“I filled it with artists and then I went and told the city about it,” he said. “So through a conversation with the city, they allowed me to continue operating as a motel and to, you know, turn a blind eye to the fact that maybe it’s not actually being used as a motel and being used as something else.”
Whether the shovels come next week or next year, Duprey is content to “make hay while the sun shines” and continue building arts spaces in Vancouver.
“There’s lots of opportunity for people like me to go create space, it’s just that we come up against the city and they set up barriers,” he said, referencing licensing and permitting processes at city hall that can be costly and time-consuming.
Duprey said there haven’t been any conversations with current artists at City Centre about where they’ll go next once their time is up but that there are spaces for artists in the city, it’s just a question of whether the city will let Duprey populate those spaces.
“The struggle that I come up with time and time again is that there’s tons of empty space and I can lease out empty space for cheap, I can fill it with artists but then the city gets involved and they make it incredibly difficult to get business licenses,” he said.
