Description of Historic Place

510-512 Yates Street is a two-storey brick commercial building located next to an empty lot at the corner of Yates and Wharf streets in the Old Town District.

Heritage Value

Constructed in 1891, 510-512 Yates Street is a good example the type of utilitarian commercial building that established this area of town as Victoria's primary wholesale centre at the latter part of the nineteenth century. Although its primary and secondary facades have been considerably altered, it makes an important contribution to lower Yates Street. Its modest size and plain brick facade maintain the continuity and scale of the historic streetscape. It is a bookend to the row of historic buildings on the north side of this block, and visually marks the transition between Wharf Street and Yates Street.

Source: City of Victoria Planning and Development Department

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of 510-512 Yates Street include:
- Its prominent location near the corner of Wharf and Yates Streets.
- Its presence as a visual bookend to the row of historic buildings on the north side of this block of Yates Street.
- Its two storey scale.
- Its plain brick primary and secondary facades.
- Surviving elements of its original design, including the locations of windows and doors, vertical openings for second-storey windows with brick hood moulds, engaged brick pilasters on the main floor, recessed panels within the brickwork, the simple pressed metal cornice, and chimneys on its western roofline.