The former headquarters of the Vancouver Police Department on Main Street is expected to open next year as a business development and technology centre.
But the cost of renovating the 1954 building that forced the VPD to move out because of its deteriorating state is still being assessed by a design firm, according to Ian McKay, the CEO of the Vancouver Economic Commission.
“The asset itself is well worth whatever it’s going to cost,” McKay told the Courier. “The asset, the location, the building will pay dividends for a long, long time.”
A previous estimate to renovate the city-owned building at 312 Main St. was $13.8 million, according to documents obtained by the Courier in June 2012 under the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act.
At the time, the biggest cost was $4 million to meet building code requirements, including seismic work and upgrades to elevators, lighting, sprinklers and fire alarm system.
Another $3.2 million would be required to upgrade electrical and mechanical systems. Other costs related to asbestos removal, tearing out building interiors and washroom upgrades.
The documents didn’t include a detailed plan for the new operation but McKay said last week it will feature “the whole soup-to-nuts continuum of start-up [companies] to commercialization.”
McKay said buildings much like the one on Main Street are being renovated in Dublin, Barcelona, Washington, Philadelphia and New York to house innovation centres.
“They become — in those models — great environments for entrepreneurs, for innovators to have a collision of ideas, a collaboration of ideas,” he said. “And we’re very much hoping to launch that in Vancouver by bringing in a tenant mix of accelerators, of incubators, of start-up firms, of service providers and program delivery companies.”
The VPD began moving its officers and equipment out of the Main Street building in November 2010 to a seven-storey building at 3585 Graveley St., near East First and Boundary Road.
In 2010, the city’s then-general manager of business planning and services Ken Bayne said the Main Street building was “at the end of its life.”
Reminded of the city’s concerns about the building’s state, Mayor Gregor Robertson said last week: “We decided it’s a lot more cost effective to keep the building and invest in improvements.”
Added Robertson: “It won’t be anything fancy but it’ll be a good useable job space. But there’re real challenges to overcome and that’s the work that’s taking place now.”
McKay and Robertson were together June 19 at a press conference to announce the city saw a 19 per cent increase in the number of “green” and local food jobs since 2010, growing from 16,700 to 20,000.
The Vancouver Economic Commission defines a “green” job based on a framework established by the United Nations Environment Program.
Such a job would focus on activities that restore or preserve environmental quality, reduce energy, materials and water consumption, “decarbonize” the economy and minimize or avoid waste and pollution.
Local food jobs refer to all food production, retailing or processing of food in Vancouver that originated in British Columbia.
