Old theatre will become `45,000 square feet of fun'
Granville Seven multiplex site is being redeveloped into an entertainment, dining hub
If you haven't been to Downtown Vancouver for a while, you might notice some changes.
There's a big new bike lane on Richards Street that reduces automobile traffic to one lane, with parking. Both downtown Gap stores (Pacific Centre and Robson Street) are kaput. The street between Robson Square and the Vancouver Art Gallery has been turned into a “permanent public plaza,” and is closed to traffic.
And then there's the redevelopment of 855 Granville St., where the Granville Seven multiplex theatre used to be. The Granville Seven opened in 1987 by combining three buildings into one theatre with seven screens. But it closed in 2012.
In 2019, Cineplex announced it would redevelop the space into an “entertaining and dining complex,” with a club, rooftop bar, restaurants and arcade.
“It is essentially 45,000 square feet of fun,” said Sarah Van Lange of Cineplex in Toronto. “It's a live entertainment venue, a state-ofthe-art arcade. It has virtual reality, it has great food, a place to meet up and have a great time with your friends. It's targeted at a millennial demographic.”
It's called the Rec Room, and is part of a chain — Cineplex has opened eight other Rec Rooms in Canada, and is about to open another one at Brentwood in Burnaby.
The catch with the Granville Street property is that it contained two heritage buildings, the 1893 Palms Hotel at 871 Granville and the 1938 Paradise Theatre at 845 Granville.
In the new development, the facades of the two heritage buildings are being retained, but the rest of the old Granville Seven has been torn down for a new structure.
It looks pretty wild at present — the Paradise Theatre facade is being propped up with steel beams, which makes it look quite frail. It is, in fact. The 1938 facade is covering a brick facade from an earlier theatre, The Globe, which has made it tricky to keep it intact.
“It's a 1913 theatre, and in 1938 (architect) Thomas Kerr comes along and designs a new facade and Bob's your uncle, except for the fact that it's just kind of pasted over the 1913 facade,” explains Don Luxton, the heritage consultant for the project. “Some of the cornices were knocked off and things were flattened, and this lath-and-plaster stucco was added to modernize it into this 1938 art deco theatre.
“It was very current and avant-garde, but certainly it wasn't originally constructed that way, it was kind of pasted together out of a bunch of existing facade elements.”
The key element in the facade is an art deco relief sculpture of a nude woman running through the clouds.
But you can't see it right now, because it's covered during construction.
“We've taken particular care with the figure, which has been very carefully protected and boxed in,” said Luxton. “We have taken a mould of it so if there's any damage we can go back to the mould and repair it exactly.”
The elegant sculpture is six feet tall, and was probably done by Charles Marega, who did the lions on the Lions Gate Bridge. It was done in hard-cast plaster, while the geometric ornamentation that goes up the left side and over the top of the facade is precast concrete.
They're both attached to the lath-and-plaster stucco, which is attached to the original brick, wood and terra cotta Globe Theatre facade.
“Unfortunately it was built over a whole bunch of materials that are acting differently and moving slightly differently,” said Luxton. “(But) so far we have been able to maintain it and stabilize it.”
The Palms Hotel facade, on the other hand, is “fairly intact” and in good shape. The new development will return the first floor to its original look, which had been altered when the exit for the Granville Seven theatre was placed there.
“This is going to bring it back into more active use,” said Luxton.
“There's a number of benefits to the project, not the least of which is that this thing has been sitting there vacant for over a decade. It's been a real detriment to the street for a long time, and it's getting an active use back in there.”
The old Paradise Theatre, which was also known as the Coronet, will have restored neon on the facade, a theatre marquee and a big vertical neon sign, “so it has the kind of character and flavour of Granville Street.”
Luxton said the old theatre's new life reflects how Granville has evolved over the years.
“Granville Street always changed, from vaudeville to movie theatres to drinking or whatever,” he said. “It's been a constant change in the form of public entertainment. Cineplex moving to a more broadly based entertainment concept is following the trend. It's no surprise, and it's a use that fits the location.”
Cineplex's Van Lange declined to give a projected opening date for the downtown Rec Room, because construction has slowed during the pandemic.
But she said the Burnaby Rec Room will open “in the next few months.”
“It's a question of when the province opens up a bit more,” she said.
The Burnaby Rec Room will be 43,755 square feet and will include two restaurants and an area called The Yard that will feature more than 90 “video and redemption games.” It will also have virtual reality, pool tables, a VRX car simulator and a “ping-pong lounge.”
Cineplex will also be opening an adult-only “VIP cinema” above the Burnaby Rec Room. The 20,732-sq.-ft cinema includes five auditoriums with 3D screens, as well as a lounge and terrace.