Yale Hotel owner strikes
heritage deal with city
Tentative agreement includes bonus density and the
retention of low-income housing
Glen
Korstrom
Business in Vancouver
January 22-28, 2008
Will Lin’s dream to replace Vancouver’s aging Cecil Hotel with
a 25-storey residential tower while upgrading the adjacent historic
Yale Hotel is inching closer to reality.
 The
Rize Alliance Properties owner, who bought the Yale Hotel for
approximately $10 million in mid-2006 and the Cecil Hotel for
“millions” of dollars soon afterward, has reached a tentative
agreement with City of Vancouver planners for his 20,000-square-foot
Granville Street site at the north end of the Granville Bridge.
“The deal now is that we have a report to council as a major project
coming down the pike, and it’s going to be seeking council approval
soon,” said Lin. “There’s a heritage revitalization agreement
involved where we would upgrade and retain the Yale Hotel and
the commercial space, the Yale pub. It will be designated a heritage
building when completed.”
 Lin’s
tentative agreement with city staff requires that he retain and
upgrade 44 subsidized housing rooms at the Yale that have single-room
occupancy (SRO) zoning. Lin will give those rooms to the city
when his proposed project is complete. In exchange, he expects
the city to allow him to build a 165,000-square-foot tower. Current
density rules provide for a maximum 100,000-square-foot tower.
Lin presented his case to a City of Vancouver urban design panel
on December 19, and that panel urged Lin to redesign his tower
to be a taller and more slender 255 to 260 feet tall instead of
its originally proposed 225-foot height.
Lin must get city approval to change the site’s zoning from “downtown
district” to “comprehensive development.” He fears delays from
the city’s backlogged rezoning department could scuttle the project.
see
Cecil Hotel
info
from the Yale's website, www.yalehotel.ca
The
Yale Hotel began
in the mid 1880's as a CPR bunkhouse where workers relaxed after
clearing land for the new community of Vancouver. On June 13, 1886
an unusually strong blast of wind set fire raging through the city.
In less than 45 minutes 1,000 wooden structures were destroyed.
The Yale, separated by bush from the main area of Vancouver, was
one of the few that survived.
Soon
after that dramatic event, the Yale became a popular gathering place
for the community. The building was refurbished and by 1889 was
renamed the Colonial Hotel. It served miners, loggers, fishermen
and CPR workers who trudged up an Indian trail in the woods from
False Creek. There was a stable below the street level for the occasional
carriage trade.
By
night, the hotel became a haunt for the workers and their friends.
Yaletown had a reputation for wild nightlife, and the activity at
the Colonial was supposedly the wildest. The hotel was named the
Yale again in 1911.
Meanwhile,
deep in the southern United States, the black culture gave birth
to the blues. Rhythm and blues is perceived in many ways. Sometimes
glamorous, sometimes heart-wrenching, the blues wound its way through
the history of America and emerged as a Canadian tradition at the
Yale.
Today,
after more than two decades of this tradition, the Yale is the focal
point for rhythm and blues in Western Canada. The icons of traditional
blues, as well as new talent, come by to play and jam. Pop stars
and screen personalities frequent the Yale to hear their R&B
idols. As well, the Yale recently built its own precision engineered
recording studio. In the basement, where stable boys used to groom
the horses, the Yale today records live performances to promote
up-and-coming local blues players and to raise funds for charities.
Hundreds
of legendary blues performers have graced the stage at the Yale.
Here is a small sample, selected by staff as their top twenty all-time
favourites:
John Lee Hooker, Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown,
Shemekia, Jeff Healey, Jim Byrnes, Buddy Miles, Long John Baldry,
John Hammond, Pinetop Perkins, Gatemouth Brown, Powder Blues, Canned
Heat, Maria Muldour, James Cotton, Eddy Clearwater, Koko Taylor,
Charlie Musselwhite, Honeyboy Edwards, Chambers Brothers, Downchild
Blues Band
Some
other names of note who have played or jammed at the Yale:
John Candy, Supertramp, Jimmy Page, Tommy Chong, Colin James, Big
Brother and the Holding Company, George Thorogood, Lee Aaron, Jim
Belushi, John Savage, The Tea Party, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Brian
Adams, Burton Cummings, Buckwheat Zydeco, Savoy Brown
And
then there's the stars who come by to hang out and listen:
Otis Rush, Amanda Marshall, Sheryl Crow, U2,
Glen Fry (Eagles), Steve Winwood, Paul Schaffer (Letterman), Patrick
Swayze, Rebecca De Mornay, Leonard Skynard Band
Image source: City of Vancouver archives
-
Circa 1944
Image source: VPL#39863
Granville street during
the construction of the Granville Street Bridge, 1954.
Note the old Yale neon sign.
Statement of Significance
Description of Historic Place
The Yale Hotel is a three-storey Second Empire-style building,
located at the corner of Granville and Drake Streets. The
building is located at the north foot of the Granville Street
Bridge at the entrance of the Granville street commercial
district, and is distinguished by its bellcast mansard roof,
gabled dormer windows, and round arched windows.
Heritage Value
The heritage value of the Yale Hotel lies in its historical,
associative, and architectural significance.
The Yale Hotel is significant as one
of the oldest surviving buildings in Vancouver and for its
association with the development of Yaletown. Construction
of the building began in 1888 and was completed in 1889. Constructed
as the Colonial Hotel, it was among a very small number of
structures to be built on Granville Street during Vancouver's
formative years. Yaletown was the working class neighbourhood
populated by workers who moved to Vancouver in the 1880s to
service and build the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). The
Colonial Hotel provided low-priced accommodation for CPR workers
and became known as the centre of the notorious Yaletown nightlife.
The hotel was also built in association with the construction
of the first Granville Street Bridge in 1889, and served travellers
between Vancouver and Richmond.
The associative value of the Yale Hotel
lies in its construction by its original owner, real estate
developer James Wellington Horne (1853-1923), who owned more
land in the downtown area than any single other person, second
only to the CPR. By 1890, only four years after his arrival
in Vancouver, Horne had built major brick blocks on most of
Vancouver's principal streets. Horne held public office in
1888-90 as a city alderman, and from 1890 to 1894 held a seat
in the provincial legislature.
The Yale Hotel is additionally valued
for its handsome Second Empire architecture, designed by Noble
Stonestreet Hoffar (1843-1907). One of Vancouver’s first
architects, Hoffar made a considerable contribution to the
evolution of the city between 1886 and the mid 1890s with
his design and construction of many of the city's largest
and most substantial structures. The Yale Hotel is a simplified
example of Second Empire architecture, which typifies the
increasingly elaborate and monumental appearance of architecture
towards the end of the nineteenth century. In Eastern Canada
and the United States, the mansard roof was closely associated
with hotel accommodation; as Hoffar was American-born, he
would have been familiar with the popular styles in Eastern
Canada and the United States. The hotel is also associated
with architect W.T. Whiteway (1856-1940), who was commissioned
to design the addition to the east in 1909. Whiteway arrived
in Vancouver at the time of the Great Fire and worked in Vancouver
from 1886-1887, then followed other building booms in the
United States and Canada before returning to Vancouver, where
he became one of the leading local architects.
Source: City of Vancouver Heritage
Conservation Program
Character-Defining Elements
Key elements that define the Yale Hotel’s Second Empire
architectural design include its:
- construction to the front and side
property lines with no setback
- form, scale and massing, as expressed by its three-storey
height, cubic shape, and four-storey, irregular plan of the
rear addition
- Second Empire style detailing, including its mansard roof
with a series of gabled dormers
- masonry construction of the original hotel, with a rubblestone
foundation and polychromatic red brick cladding with yellow
brick detailing (quoining, arched window crowns and patterned
brickwork around the entire building at the cornice)
- masonry construction of the rear addition, with a scored
concrete foundation and rough-dressed sandstone window sills
- regular and symmetrical fenestration of the original section,
with round-headed windows and projecting window hoods
- regular and asymmetrical fenestration of the rear addition,
including some original 1-over-1 double hung wooden sash windows
and first storey side elevation windows with transoms, and
transoms over the rear fire escape doors
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