Repurposing Vancouver’s Main Street City Centre Motor Hotel, temporarily

The Main Street City Centre Motor Hotel, located along Main Street between 5^th and 6^th Avenues in Vancouver, has seen the neighbourhood around it change considerably over the past 60+ years. Mount Pleasant includes a wide range of housing forms, an innovation hub, and the Main Street village shopping area. The introduction of the Millennium Line SkyTrain extension along Broadway is anticipated to bring a new wave of change in the coming decades.

Nicola Wealth Real Estate (NWRE) acquired the City Centre Motor Hotel this fall intending to redevelop the property in two to three years in-line with the pending Broadway Corridor Plan. In the meantime, with the motel now closed for business, NWRE intends to give the motel a short-term second life as much needed artist studio spaces — working with The Narrow Group and in partnership with Vancouver Mural Fest (VMF).

The Narrow Group has opened and operated multiple arts and culture spaces in Mt Pleasant and around Vancouver. They look for opportunities to provide artists of all mediums with affordable working space and have been able to use several future development sites for this purpose.

Exactly what a redevelopment proposal may look like has yet to be determined since the Broadway Corridor Plan is still in its draft stages and not expected to be considered by Vancouver City Council until May 2022. Following that, the approvals process is anticipated to take approximately two years from when a rezoning application is submitted, which provides a unique opportunity to introduce a temporary use on site.