Vancouver city council has ordered the demolition of a 115-year-old heritage building that engineers say has become dangerously unstable.
Councillors voted unanimously on Wednesday to declare the former Dunsmuir Hotel a danger to public safety.
Holborn Properties, which owns the structure through a subsidiary, will also be required “to preserve certain heritage features to be reused in any future development of the site,” if it can be done safely.
The company has been given 21 days to do the work at its own expense.
The historic building at 500 Dunsmuir Street was constructed in 1909 but has sat vacant since 2013.
An engineering report to council warned that the structure has become dilapidated and dangerous, with rotting wood framing, broken windows, water dripping through structurally compromised areas and inoperable sprinkler and fire alarm systems.
While the building is listed on Vancouver’s Heritage Registry, it is not protected under heritage designation laws.
“We should have never been put in this situation. This was, again, on the Heritage Registry, a beautiful building, part of the historic streetscape and history of Vancouver,” said Vancouver Coun. Peter Meiszner.
“It’s just terrible to see it come to this, where we’re faced with no choice but to tear it down due to the life safety risk that it poses.”
City staff say the company failed to adequately maintain the building’s roof, deal with water damage and conduct basic structural and safety upkeep.
The ground floor of the building has collapsed in one corner, and further collapses in that part of the building could lead to a “catastrophic, cascading collapse,” according to the report.
Hazardous materials like asbestos, lead, mould and bird droppings are also widespread, the report states.
Holborn was invited to speak to council on Wednesday, but did not attend, instead submitting a letter stating it had always intended to develop the land.
The company said it bought the building in 2006 and operated it as a rooming house until 2009. Between 2009 and 2013, it leased the building to BC Housing amid “political pressure” from the province and city to reduce street homelessness during the 2010 Olympics, it said.
“Holborn complied with this request, and at the end of the lease, the building was in such a dilapidated state that it would require approximately $2.6 million in remediation cost to bring the building into a livable/leasable condition,” it said.
Holborn said it took “considerable action to secure the building after it was vacated, but that homeless people continued to break in and strip it of valuable components, bringing the cost of repairs to between $10 million and $15 million by 2019.
“Holborn was put in a situation where it made no financial sense to reinvest money into the building, rather wanting to put the money towards a new development that would be of greater benefit to the neighbourhood and community,” it said, adding it submitted initial plans to the city in 2017 but alleging it was held up by city red tape.
There are no current applications for redevelopment before the city, staff said on Wednesday.
The company also claims that despite regular correspondence with the city, it did not learn of the collapsed areas until August 2024.
–with files from Alissa Thibault