18 West Hastings Street

The value of 18 West Hastings Street lies in the historic relationship between this area and the economy of early Vancouver. Edwardian commercial structures like this one are associated with the Hastings Street corridor’s history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as a mixed-use district, being the centre for Vancouver’s trade and manufacturing.

The building is noteworthy because of its original owner, Patrick Burns of P. Burns & Company, who had it built in 1909-10 to house both the company’s head office and one of several retail outlets in the city, having moved his operation from 37 West Cordova Street. Burns was a rancher, meat packer and operator of a chain of butcher shops in western Canada. Burns Meats went on to become one of the largest meat packing businesses in Canada, and Patrick Burns himself became a millionaire as result of his early entrepreneurial activity. In his later years, he was appointed to the Canadian Senate.

Also significant in its function, 18 West Hastings Street was built to provide accommodation and office space for a mix of tenants, including physicians, real estate agents, contractors, a tailor, as well as the Canadian Northern Railway. It was typical of scores of commercial buildings built during the early twentieth century, when this part of town was the prime business and shopping area.

The building’s classically-inspired Edwardian design, massing and scale speak to the period’s evolving building technology, and to the shift in the social structure and economy that occurred at the turn of the twentieth century. Its height and simplified symmetrically-arranged facade of white brick typifies the change from the Victorian era and in this new form, evokes this major economic boom period in the west.