Former downtown Vancouver jail transformed into apartments
A building that once housed some of Canada’s most notorious criminals, from terrorists to murderers and rapists, will get new residents later this month.
They will be of a gentler sort. Ninety-six residents of the Downtown Eastside are about to move into the former Vancouver Remand Centre, which has undergone a $20-million renovation and conversion to permanent housing. The barred doors, dark windowless cells, tiered bunks and electronically monitored prisoners are long gone.
Closed in 2002 and left empty until renovations began in 2012, the building at 250 Powell St. was once the main holding facility for as many as 400 prisoners awaiting trial, but there is nothing left to signify that.
The jail had a storied history as the home of people such as Air India bomber Inderjit Singh Reyat, his co-accused (but subsequently acquitted plotters) Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, killers Sebastian Burns and Atif Rafay, and spy Charles McVey.
The 100 concrete prisoner pods that hung on the outside of the building like limpets have been cut off and taken away. In their place, new modern living units have been installed. The old prison gymnasium has been converted into a gathering place, and the internal prison yard has become a community garden.
With a mix of bachelor suites and one-bedroom apartments, the building is the latest effort to create mixed housing for a broad spectrum of people, from disadvantaged youth to formerly homeless women and lowincome employed people.
“The incredible thing is we (took) a building that for so many years was a symbol of hopelessness and it’s turned into a symbol of hope here in the Downtown Eastside,” said Marleen Morris, a member of the Bloom Group, the non-profit agency formerly known as the St. James Community Service Society, which will operate the residence.
Cassandra Wilson, 32, will be one of the first to move in later this month. She’s been enrolled with the BladeRunners program for the last year, learning construction and labour skills. Right now she’s staying at an aboriginal shelter, but the new building means new hope for reuniting with her eight-yearold son, who is staying with his grandparents.
“Look, I have my own bedroom now,” she beamed as she showed off her new third-floor apartment. “I will have more space and I will be able to have my child with me now.”
Of the 96 units, 38 on the first two floors will be for youth enrolled in BladeRunners, a program that teaches life skills and construction techniques to people ages 18 to 30.
The program was first started by the late Jim Green in 1994 as an experiment to offer youth employment in the construction of GM Place. It is now a provincewide program that assists 1,200 people annually.
“Our program has been going on for a long time, but this is the first housing we’ve been able to get together for people,” said BladeRunners director Tom Galway. “This is an ongoing legacy of Jim’s vision.”
Of the remaining units, 42 will be filled by people who are already working or living in the Downtown Eastside and who earn between $26,000 and $40,000 per year. The remaining 16 units are for formerly homeless women transitioning from The Bloom Group’s emergency housing and the YWCA’s Crabtree Corner.
Rents will range from $375, the provincial shelter rate, to $850, with rents for those who are employed being no more than about a third of their income, said Bloom Group executive director Jonathan Oldman.
BC Housing Minister Rich Coleman, who as solicitor-general in a previous government ordered the remand centre closed in 2002, said he toured it while it was in operation and when it was vacant. After Wednesday’s tour he said he could recognize nothing of the old jail.
Mike Flanigan, BC Housing’s vice-president of development, said the agency looked at tearing down the remand centre and building new, but realized it would be better to keep the existing shell. It had to be scrubbed of asbestos and lead paint.
The province contributed $16.6 million, with the city providing a $2-million grant and waiving nearly $900,000 in development cost charges. With land charges included, the overall cost was more than $20 million, Flanigan said.
The building is still owned by the provincial government and houses the community court and some Vancouver police services on the main floor.