Description of Historic Place

Nash Hardware is a one-storey Art Deco style building located on the main thoroughfare of the downtown core. The historic place is confined to the building footprint.

Heritage Value

The Nash Hardware Building is significant as part of a continuous line of similarly scaled and largely intact historic buildings located on the west side of Commercial Street.

The Nash Hardware Building is a very good example of late Art Deco architecture. Originally built in 1909, the building received an Art Deco style facelift in 1945. The new facade represented a modern design aesthetic that was increasingly popular in postwar Nanaimo and particularly appropriate to a building supply business.

Source: City of Nanaimo, Development Services Department, file #6800-20-H01-02/19 Commercial Street

Character-Defining Elements

Character defining elements of the Nash Hardware building include:

-all of the elements of Art Deco style as expressed in the concrete facade, the cast-in-place chevrons at the cornice line and geometric inset panels in the facade.

-the building's location within a continuous line of similarly scaled and massed historic commercial buildings.