Strathcona’s historic Produce Row threatened by pending road changes
Fresh-food wholesalers along Malkin Drive in Strathcona, unofficially known as Produce Row, are worried about their future.
Some are running businesses with roots tied to the early days of Chinatown and farms across the Lower Mainland and in the Fraser Valley. There are also owners and workers who trace family migration routes to southern China’s Sze Yup and Zhongshan counties.
Now, it’s also an area of sharply rising property values with the city planning to take down the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts and Providence Health Care to build a new St. Paul’s Hospital. All of this has made for an ongoing and heated debate in this East Vancouver community about who gets to decide where new roadways will go.
The latest flash point comes with wholesalers worrying that a City of Vancouver community panel that is looking into options for an arterial won’t represent their interests and is being rushed into making decisions that could force their closure.
The wholesalers are in favour of the Williams Street Option, which they say would allow their delivery trucks to continue backing into their loading bays off Malkin Drive, an essential part of their operations, said Damien Bryan, general manager of Discovery Organics.
“The (loading bays) are north-facing so we don’t have the sun beating down on the produce when we unload,” Bryan said.
The Williams Street Option would, however, cut across the southern edge of Strathcona Park, removing a running track, soccer field, some baseball diamonds, tennis courts and a field house. Last week, the Strathcona Residents Association came up with another proposal called the National-Charles option. This would have the main arterial run one street down from Malkin, on National Avenue, and curve up to Charles Street before ending on Clark Drive.
Richard Taplin, a retired civil engineer and Strathcona resident, said that option would avoid having an arterial cut through Strathcona Park and allow Produce Row wholesalers to keep their access off Malkin Drive.