Release: Flack Block celebrates its opening with City of Vancouver Heritage Award of Honour, and new innovative tenants

After two years of restoration by The Salient Group, and an intensive period of tenant space renovation by Renewal Partners, the 1898 Flack Block recently celebrated its official re-opening. The Flack Block is the new home to the Tides/Renewal Centre, a collection of socially progressive businesses including Renewal Partners, Tides Canada, Hollyhock Leadership Institute, Forest Ethics, Rainforest Solutions Project, Penner & Associates sustainable design, and Raised Eyebrow Communications, among others.

Under the leadership and commitment of Renewal Partners, the Tides/Renewal centre office renovation in the Flack Block will achieve a LEED Gold for Commercial Interiors certification from the Canada Green Building Council. This designation is among the first in Canada in a heritage building that will be made available to lease.

The Flack Block redevelopment is a prime example of what can be accomplished in a partnership with the Government of Canada, a strong incentive program from the City of Vancouver, and the tremendous commitment from private sector developer, The Salient Group, along with their partners and consultants. “Coupled with the addition of the modernist fifth floor, and highly progressive design by Acton Ostry Architects and the rigid historic discipline of heritage consultant Don Luxton, The Flack Block is one of Canada’s most important heritage restoration and rehabilitation projects,” says Robert Fung, project developer for The Salient Group. “In addition, it is a model for the way in which government and the private sector can combine forces to achieve levels of economic development, heritage rehabilitation, community growth, and investment that would otherwise be unattainable. We believe that new tenants the Tides Renewal Centre, with their dedication to social philanthropy, ideally suit the inspiring architecture and design of the Flack Block.”

The Flack Block recently captured the City of Vancouver’s highest level of heritage recognition, the Award of Honour, for “structural, seismic and building systems upgrading, sustainable interiors, locally crafted stone façade components, reinstated areaways, extensive exterior restoration, and a compatible contemporary rooftop addition”.

Ironically, the Flack Block opening celebration occurred while Vancouver’s heritage revitalization incentive program is under review. As well, the Government of Canada Commercial Heritage Properties Incentive Fund, under which the Flack Block was completed, has been cancelled.

“The Flack Block is one of seven buildings that Salient has completed or under construction under the City of Vancouver’s Heritage Incentive Program in Vancouver’s historic downtown,” says The Salient Group’s Robert Fung. “These intensive restoration projects won’t happen without a working program of this nature.”

The Flack Block, a heritage treasure fallen into disrepair, was built in 1898 by Thomas Flack, one of three partner prospectors who struck it rich panning for gold. News of their success launched the Klondike Gold Rush. Located at the commercial centre of the city and across from the first courthouse, the Flack Block was the original home to the Bank of Vancouver. In later years it hosted men’s clothier E.A. Lee, but as Hastings Street around Victory Square declined, it became home to a series of pawnshops and varied illegal activities until rescued by Salient in 2005.

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