Marine Building considered for city hall
Public backlash focused on cost of buying or leasing art deco structure
The art deco Marine Building was planned at the end of a big economic boom in the 1920s. But by the time the building opened on Oct. 9, 1930, the world had entered the Great Depression, and the company that built it went bust.
Looking to salvage some of the $2.3 million it cost to build it, the “eastern bondholders” who had taken control of the Marine Building offered it to the City of Vancouver as a city hall.
“Plans of city aldermen to acquire the 25-storey Marine Building, Burrard and Hastings, as a permanent city hall are reported to be rapidly nearing a definite understanding,” reported the March 10, 1931 Province. (It's actually 21 storeys.)
“Prolonged secret negotiations have occurred between a special committee of the city council and representatives of the building company's bondholders, Starrett Bros. And Co. Of New York.”
The Sun reported the city was looking at a short-term lease, “with the option to purchase.” The purchase price was said to be $2 million.
At the time, city hall was being run out of leased space at the Holden Building at 16 East Hastings. The Province reported it cost $30,000 a year in rent, and the lease would be up Nov. 31, 1931.
City hall had moved to the Holden Building in 1924 when Vancouver determined its 1897 city hall at 415 Main was too small. Plans for a new civic centre with a city hall were pitched in 1914, 1922 and 1928, but none of them were built.
Hence the city was intrigued by the Marine Building, arguably the most beautiful structure ever built in Vancouver. “The building suggests some great marine rock rising from the sea, clinging with sea flora and fauna, tinted in sea green, flashed with gold, at night a dim silhouette piercing the sea mists,” The Vancouver Sun wrote in an opening day supplement for the building on Oct. 7, 1930.
It was also in the heart of the downtown business district, perched on a bluff above the Coal Harbour waterfront. “An argument submitted in favour of purchase by the city is the fact that only a portion of the building would be required for civic purposes, and the remainder of the block could be rented,” noted The Province.
But public opinion was divided on the deal. In a March 16 letter to The Sun, a man named Walter Walsh noted that a few years previously council asked the taxpayers for $1 million to build a city hall, and voters had rejected it.
Walsh wrote that the Marine Building was built as an office building, not a city hall, and “at best it will never be anything more than another makeshift (city hall).” He also argued that if the city bought and rented out part of the Marine Building, “it would be engaging in the office building business in competition with taxpayers.”
Business groups also objected. “After analyzing figures on the scheme,” the Board of Trade concluded renting the Holden Block and then building a purpose-built city hall made more sense. The Real Estate Exchange argued the proposed lease was too high.
The waters were muddied even further when the owner of the six-storey Shelly Building at 123 West Pender St. offered to sell the building to the city for $240,000, to be paid in $30,000 lease instalments over eight years.
On June 1, The Sun reported the city had signed a new two-year lease on the Holden Building.
“Public disapproval of moving to the Marine Building was taken into consideration,” the paper noted.
In 1933, the Marine Building sold for $900,000 to British Pacific Properties, which then built the Lion's Gate Bridge. But the fight for a purpose-built city hall went on.
In 1934, taxpayers approved a $640,000 new city hall on the Central School site at Pender and Cambie, above Victory Square. There's a great WJ Moore photomontage of an art deco city hall there.
But after mayor Gerry Mcgeer read the Riot Act at Victory Square to disperse unemployed protesters on April 23, 1935, he decided to move it to 12th and Cambie.
It opened Dec. 5, 1936, and cost $1 million — $100,000 more than the Marine Building sold for three years earlier.