Description du lieu patrimonial

The Young Block is a two-storey commercial and retail building, with arched windows and large retail windows. It is located on the north side of Columbia Street, the main commercial street in New Westminster's historic downtown core.

Valeur patrimoniale

The Young Block is significant for its contribution to the consistent and distinctive built form of Columbia Street, which dates from 1898 to 1913, when New Westminster was the major centre of commerce and industry for the booming Fraser Valley area. This structure was originally built in 1899 as a replacement for the 1891 Armstrong-Young Block. The western half of the two-storey and basement brick block was owned by Benjamin Young, while his partner Joseph Charles Armstrong owned the eastern half. In 1911, the new owner W.P. Ogilvie, president of the Royal Theatre Company, decided to convert one-half of the building into a vaudeville and photoplay theatre when it received a 'good class' vaudeville contract with the Fisher Circuit. When the theatre closed in the 1920s, the building was renovated to house a Safeway grocery store; a projecting marquee, now modified, survives from this period.

The Young Block is valued for its association with architect George William Grant (1852-1925) who designed the original structure; Grant designed much of the built environment in downtown New Westminster before and after the Great Fire of 1898. Gardiner and Mercer, the partnership of Francis George Gardiner (1878-1966) and Andrew Lamb Mercer (1878-1959), one of the more enduring and prolific architectural partnerships in the province, designed the 1911 conversion to theatre use.

Source: Heritage Planning Files, City of New Westminster

Éléments caractéristiques

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Young Block include its:
- mid-block location on Columbia Street, on a lot that runs through to Clarkson Street, part of a grouping of late Victorian and Edwardian era commercial buildings in historic downtown New Westminster
- siting on the front and side property lines, with no setbacks
- form, scale and massing as expressed in the two storey height, flat roof and modest scale
- projecting storefront marquee with support rods
- board-formed concrete side walls
- modest front facade ornamentation, including simple cornice and inset tiles
- rear facade with rough-cast stucco cladding, central round-arched recessed entry, two flanking side entries with round-arched transoms, and projecting metal cornice
- fenestration: double-hung 1-over-1 wooden-sash windows on the front facade second floor, with round-arched 4-paned transoms; large rectangular storefront windows; triple-assembly wooden-sash casements with transoms on the rear facade ground floor; and double-hung 9-over-1 wooden-sash windows on the rear facade second floor, in single and double-assembly