Army & Navy closures likely to reshape community
Closure of retail fixture after 101 years to significantly reshape neighbourhoods
A Vancouver-based retail institution is shutting its doors for good, leaving the future of its properties up in the air.
Army & Navy president and CEO Jacqui Cohen, whose grandfather started the business 101 years ago, announced on Saturday that due to financial losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, its five department stores, three of which are in Metro Vancouver, will be permanently closed.
While Cohen said in an emailed statement on Monday that it’s too early to say what will end up replacing the stores in Vancouver and New Westminster, “certainly it will be something that benefits the community.” Army & Navy leases its Langley location.
The flagship department store in Vancouver is made up of three buildings — two on West Hastings Street and one on West Cordova Street — but the space was consolidated into the Cordova building, renovated and refurbished for the 100th anniversary last year.
According to property records, the 32,000-square-foot property at 8-36 West Cordova is assessed at $10.7 million. Also known as the Dunn-Miller Block and considered one of Gastown’s most significant buildings, it’s on the city’s heritage register and is protected by a heritage designation bylaw.
The adjacent buildings at 1527 West Hastings occupy almost 15,000 square feet and are assessed at $19 million. They are not listed on the heritage register.
Army & Navy is a significant presence in the neighbourhood.
“That place has been there for so long, they haven’t left, they’ve made it through 100 years of history and … to have it leave, it’ll in some ways remake part of the fabric, the landscape of the Downtown Eastside community. It’s not a small thing,” said Union Gospel Mission spokesman Jeremy Hunka.
The stores, particularly in Vancouver, serve people with lower incomes who will miss being able to shop for reasonably priced necessities in their own neighbourhoods.
Hunka said he knows of mothers who would go to Army & Navy in Vancouver to buy school supplies and clothing for their children. Those who are homeless and getting back on their feet buy work gear such as boots, backpacks and tool belts there.
In New Westminster, Army & Navy occupies a 36,000-sq.-ft site on Columbia Street, in the city’s historic downtown core and commercial area. The business has been in the city since 1939 and at that location since 1977.
Mayor Jonathan Coté said the department store has been a fixture, and many residents will be disappointed to see it shut down.
Army & Navy owns the property at 502 Columbia St., which is assessed at $9.8 million, all but $97,600 of which is land value. Coté said the building is in “not the greatest condition” and he anticipates that the site will be redeveloped. “It’s located on our historic Columbia Street, so I think the city will be very interested in the urban design and to ensure there is still really good retail frontage on whatever ends up going into that site,” Coté said.
Columbia Street between Fourth and Eighth streets is considered a heritage streetscape, and the building, which dates to 1948, is on the city’s heritage register.
Coté said it is too early to tell what will happen to the property, but the area has been envisioned as a “mixed-use neighbourhood with a strong retail component along the Columbia Street spine.”
The chain’s third B.C. location is in a strip mall in the City of Langley, across from city hall. Mayor Val van den Broek said the store was within walking distance for a lot of seniors and there is no other onestop shop in the immediate area.
“It’s a very central location — it’s right in our downtown core. It was a valuable asset to our citizens, because it provides everything from food, to camping gear, to bedding. It had everything in it,” van den Broek said. “It’s going to have a big impact on our community.”