Description of Historic Place

564 Beatty Street is an elegant three-storey commercial building on Beatty Street, in the Victory Square area of Vancouver’s eastern downtown district, probably erected in two stages between 1909 and 1912. It and its neighbours along the east side of Beatty Street are set at the edge of an escarpment, resulting in this building having a further three floors below the Beatty Street level, facing the lane and what was once a railway spur line.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of 564 Beatty Street is found in its representing Vancouver’s booming wholesale business in the first decade of the twentieth century, and the way in which it demonstrates the importance of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in the City’s economic development during this time. It also has value for its architecture and for its historical associations.

The building seems to have been built in two stages: the first portion, erected around 1909, was four storeys high on the rail spur line (lane) and one storey above ground on Beatty Street. In 1912, two additional storeys were added to designs by J.P. Matheson & Son, Architects. (The ‘son’ was Robert Matheson, later a partner in the celebrated firm, Townley and Matheson.) The owner and developer was Robert A. Walsh. The original occupant was the Gurney Foundry Co. Ltd., an Ontario firm that used this as its British Columbia distribution warehouse. Gurney eventually purchased the property in 1913.

Prosperity and settlement in the province in the first decade of the twentieth century meant that Vancouver quickly became the wholesale centre of the province. There was sufficient demand for quality warehouses and offices on the fringe of downtown, which resulted in the CPR developing its land along Beatty Street beginning around 1905, typically with one or two storeys on the Beatty elevation and additional floors below, facing the tracks, in response to the escarpment.

The building also has value for its architecture. It has an attractive brick Commercial Style elevation on Beatty Street, with the four bays separated by pilasters and amply illuminated by large windows. As with other buildings on the block, the rear elevation is much plainer, and has segmental-headed windows set in a red brick wall. The structural frame is wood. The building has further value as a termination of the continuous row of similarly massed and scaled buildings north from here to Pender Street.

The remains of an early loading dock have value for demonstrating the relationship to the CPR spur line along the east side. A metal bumper is extant on the rear elevation. So too are the painted words ‘Metals Limited’, the name of the business that purchased the building from Gurney in 1936 and remained here nearly two decades.

The name plate on the parapet currently reads ‘Beatty Gate’, a recent re-naming of the building as its use changed.

Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of 564 Beatty Street include:
- The prominent location on Beatty Street, within an important streetscape of similar masonry-clad warehouses
- The three-storey brick facade at the property line on Beatty Street and the six-storey brick facade on the lane to the east
- The architectural treatment of the Beatty Street facade, whose features include brick pilasters, recessed spandrels, four bays of windows on the front elevation, corbelled brick work over the windows, sheet metal cornice with dentils at the top of the building, and a stepped parapet with a panel for the name of the building
- The original wood sash windows
- The treatment of the rear (east) elevation, whose features include segmental brick arched windows, stone sills, fire escape, stone work at the ground floor level, partial-painted sign ‘Metals Limited’ on the lower portion of the wall, the metal bumper, and the loading bay
- The straightforward massing with no setbacks