Downtown Canada Post processing plant put up for sale
City zoning is key to development possibilities for 349 West Georgia

Ashley Ford, The Province (Wednesday, April 11, 2007)

Vancouver's main post office is officially up for sale.

Canada Post spokeswoman Colleen Frick confirmed yesterday that the sprawling, 49-year-old building that occupies a strategic block at 349 West Georgia is on the block.

But even if everything proceeded as hoped for with the complex sale, "the earliest we could move would be 2009," she said.

Canada Post says the vintage plant, "given its age and location, severely limits processing and operational movement."

Don Vassos of CB Richard Ellis in Vancouver, who is brokering the sale, said he must find a buyer and also locate space that will continue to give the post office a presence in the downtown core.

"It is a huge sale and a big plot of land and is quite complex," he said.

"Part of that complexity depends on what the city will allow to be built on it. It depends on what zoning is fixed to it." Frick said Canada Post is committed to maintaining a "retail presence in the downtown core somewhere."

The current property is thought to be worth at least $60 million to $70 million under its current zoning. The big unknown is what the city may allow to be developed on the site.

City officials could not be contacted yesterday for comment, but a city rezoning specialist has been assigned the file.

With the Vancouver economy booming there will be intense competition from potential investors from the office/commercial and residential sectors.

Canada Post had earlier said it wants a new single-storey location built where rush-hour traffic is not such a big issue.

Frick said the building currently houses the processing operations for Lower Mainland letter mail, Canada Post administration and two letter-carrier depots.

It employs 1,700 workers and is the country's third-largest mail-processing operation.

Now known as the Vancouver Mail Processing Plant, it opened for business in 1958. The $13-million, five- storey building was the largest welded steel structure in the world when it opened.

aford@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Province 2007 Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.

Is another one of Vancouver's last remaining Modernist (is it in the Modern style?) buildings in jeopardy? If it is to be demolished and replaced, what would you like to see there? And with demolish or no demolition, what would you want to see there (ie: museum, theatre..)?

Anything but condos:
1) Office space. If they zone this as office space, the city better allow for something really spectacular.....much bigger than Bentall 5 (taller and more striking).
2) Cultural precinct. The city and province are currently working on a cultural precinct at a nearby plot of land a block away. Perhaps the Art Gallery could move into the post office, either hire an international architect to renovate the building and make it really stunning (preferred) or build a new museum at the post office site.
3) A combination of both.

I'd prefer it stay and become incorporated into a newer structure. ALthough, given its distinct design, I'd say it's going to be hard to blend with any building that's won't be retro-designed to look from that era.