Description of Historic Place

The historic place at 191 Alexander Street is a five-storey, plus basement, brick and heavy wood frame warehouse built for the former Grand Trunk Pacific Coast Steamship Company backing on to railway sidings in Vancouver's historic Gastown.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the warehouse at 191 Alexander Street resides in its architecture, and in its association with the Grand Trunk Pacific Coast Steamship Company.

The warehouse is of interest as a product of the prominent architectural firm of Samuel Maclure and Cecil Croker Fox, and is most likely the work of Fox, who ran the Vancouver branch of the practice. The architectural style used is an example of Edwardian Free Rationalism, a style that sought to express structure and function, common in England at that time, but unusual in Vancouver. The use of this style almost certainly reflects Fox's architectural training in England with seminal Edwardian architect Charles Francis Annesley Voysey, that had ended with his immigration to Canada in 1898. Significantly, the plain but well-proportioned principal elevation is reminiscent of more recent commercial development in the area, although in its day it must have appeared Spartan and modernist.

The building's heritage value is amplified by its completeness and its continuing splendid isolation, resulting from the awkwardly shaped and undeveloped space to the east and the empty lot to the west, which gives access to the rail sidings.

Built in 1910 for the Grand Trunk Pacific Coast Steamship Company, by prolific Vancouver contractors Baynes and Horie, as a transfer warehouse related to the shipping line's activities, the building is a manifestation of the desire of the parent company, the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, to expand their passenger service after the purchase of steamships to provide a service from Prince Rupert to various ports along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska. This strategy, designed to pay for the construction of the railway built between 1905 and 1914, failed due to inflation during the First World War, causing the company to go into receivership in 1923. Advertising for the Grand Trunk Pacific Coast Steamship Company made particular play of the 'Big Game Hunting' opportunities, including grizzly and black bear, moose, caribou, and mountain sheep and goat in the Rockies and elsewhere, made accessible by their ship and rail transport network. The elegant steamers SS Prince George and SS Prince Rupert were a familiar site at Vancouver's Grand Trunk Pacific Dock at the foot of Main Street.

The siting of the warehouse reflects the adjacency of the railway tracks and the connection with their rail network, and the proximity of the company steamship wharf to the north.

The conversion of the warehouse to offices for various law firms and offices of the Toronto Dominion Bank in the mid-1970s, and by 1980, the Legal Services Society of British Columbia, is of value for reflecting the transition of land use in the area from industrial to professional as real estate speculation (and the centre of commercial activity) shifted west toward Granville Street.

Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of 191 Alexander Street include:
- Location in Vancouver's historic Gastown district
- Location between rail sidings and Alexander Street
- Form and massing, including occupation of the entire lot
- Isolation of the building achieved by empty lots on either side and rail sidings to the rear
- Division of the Alexander Street facade into three bays
- Functional architectural treatment, as illustrated by flat brick transoms defined by projecting string courses and square-headed windows punched into the brick wall plane
- The arrangement of the transoms and mullions of the windows
- The larger openings at street level
- The stepped parapet with square pediment over the central bay of the building
- The lack of any cornice