City sinks plan for splashy neon hotel sign
Attempt to partly revive Granville’s mecca of neon roots halted by ‘imaginary line’
After pouring millions of investment money to breathe new life into a century-old Granville Street hotel, the property’s new owners were disappointed this week when the plug was pulled on their vision of an animated neon sign.
The proposal was to install an animated neon figure of a woman in a one-piece bathing suit appearing to dive off the top of the existing Hotel Belmont sign on the corner of Nelson and Granville streets, making her way down to a splash at the bottom.
But there was a problem: the hotel’s address is on the south side of Nelson, the street designated by Section 12.15 of the Vancouver sign bylaw as the boundary for signs with “animated copy” on Granville.
The six-storey hotel building, built in 1912, was looking a little rundown in recent years, like much of that stretch of Granville. The hotel was operating as a generic Comfort Inn with an Irish pub on the ground floor when Pacific Reach Properties acquired it in 2017. The new owners say they spent more than $12 million to renovate and rebrand the hotel, taking it back to its name from the last century, and to revamp the bar into a popular destination.
Last year, the city approved Pacific Reach’s application to add a neon diving woman to the existing sign — but without animation. The city told the owners there may be a chance to explore an animated sign at in the future through more planning work being done on Granville, but at this time, they couldn’t approve an animated sign on the south side of Nelson. If the property was across the street, it seemed, an animated sign would be OK.
So the Belmont’s owners appealed to council, seeking a relaxation. But, after Tuesday’s 90-minute special council meeting, council upheld the permitting department’s decision by a vote of 9-2, and the animated sign proposal was extinguished.
In the grand scheme of things, the last splash of the Belmont Hotel’s neon-sign idea is far from the most important issue facing council or the city at large. Vancouver is still in the midst of dual public health crises, with the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on the local economy and city finances, and the drug-overdose epidemic killing Vancouverites at an increasing rate.
The city is also, like many others in North America, grappling with serious questions on housing, homelessness, police reform, community safety, and racism. There is a lot going on right now beyond the neon diving lady.
But the rejection can be seen as a symbol of how difficult it can be for a business trying to do something fun and creative in Vancouver, said Coun. Michael Wiebe, one of the two councillors who voted in favour of allowing the animated sign.
“This is a great example where we’re getting stuck because of bureaucracy, and it’s kind of hamstringing us,” said Wiebe who didn’t blame staff for rejecting the animated sign — they were following the bylaws as written.
Vancouver has some old bylaws which seem to be missing rationale or purpose, but the city is constrained by them all the same, Wiebe said.
“This sign is just showcasing how this system we have in place is so frustrating, and that’s what we’re hoping to change,” he said.
Wiebe introduced a motion to council last month aiming to make the city more flexible and efficient at dealing with local businesses, especially emerging ones. Wiebe hopes that motion, and council’s unanimous support for it, will help make things better.
The city’s recent moves to allow restaurants to open fast and flexible outdoor patio spaces, he said, can also be a “catalyst” for a new way that city hall can deal with local business operators.
The COVID-19 pandemic has put many Granville businesses on “life support,” Belmont general manager Jeff Leung said after the decision.
COVID’s impact on the hospitality industry has been “catastrophic,” Leung said. “We got hit the fastest and the worst, and we will be the slowest to rebound.”
The Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association supported the animated sign, association CEO Charles Gauthier told council, because it would pay homage to Granville’s roots as a destination once renowned as a mecca of neon, and also introduce a strong “place-making element” to make a quiet stretch of the street more of a destination today.
Many like Granville’s neon signage and would like to see more inventive uses, including animated signs like the rejected Belmont proposal.
“It’s just on the wrong side of the street with an imaginary line on a map,” Gauthier told council. “A lot of people don’t understand: ‘Why couldn’t this be done?’ ”
At the end of the day “it’s just a sign,” Gauthier said after the decision. “But I think it would have been a step in the right direction.”