Description of Historic Place

The Power Block is a one-storey concrete block commercial building located on the east side of the 200 block of Main Street in Penticton, British Columbia. The pressed brick façade has been covered with wooden cladding.

Heritage Value

The Power Block is significant as part of the commercial development on Main Street that accompanied Penticton's commercial growth in the early 1920s, a period when the city became the business centre of the South Okanagan and was experiencing a post World War I boom.

By 1921, the year the block was built, the city's population reached 4000 people and commercial construction was booming. Together with the Erikson block, constructed in 1922, and the CPR Telegraph building, it is valuable for its continuity of commercial use and for being part of an intact 1920s commercial streetscape. Like other buildings of this era, the Power Block was constructed of concrete blocks, with a brick front. It was designed by Lindsay Swan, a well-known commercial architect of the day, to complete his project. Swan is valued for his contribution to such early Penticton buildings as the Kettle Valley Lakeshore Station, the municipal power house, and the B.C. Growers Warehouse. It was first occupied by a drug store and featured an extraordinarily large front display window for its time.

The Power Block is also valued for its association with Safeway stores, which occupied the building from the late 1920s until 1950. Canada Safeway was incorporated in 1929 and by 1931 there were more than 3200 Safeway stores in Canada, with its success largely due to the arrival of home refrigeration and new consumer behavior. Safeway stores pioneered the provision of a wide variety of goods and services in a single store, including groceries and drugs, self-service, low margin sales, weigh scales for customers, and vertical product integration.

The Power Block is also notable for its association with prominent Penticton pioneer John Power. Power came to Penticton in 1906 to take up the position of secretary-treasurer for the Southern Okanagan Land Company, which was responsible for developing the Penticton town site and irrigation system that served the town. Power was involved with many early Penticton institutions, including the Board of Trade and the Aquatic Club, and he was part owner of the Penticton Herald newspaper.

SOURCE: City of Penticton Civic File

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Power Block include its:

-location amongst a 1920s commercial streetscape on the 200 block of Main Street
-association with the Erikson Block to the south
-low one-storey profile
-brick cornice
-hollow concrete block construction
-pressed brick façade
-large display windows
-glass tiles below the windows, arranged in a brick work pattern
-indented entrance way