Vancouver's new Filipino Cultural Centre gains momentum with federal backing | Daily Hive

Vancouver's new Filipino Community and Cultural Centre project gains momentum with federal backing

Preliminary concept of 1940 Main St., Vancouver, featuring hotel uses and the Filipino Community and Cultural Centre. (Formosis Architecture/PortLiving)

Momentum is building, and the winds are set fair to finally create a true home for the thriving Filipino Canadian community in British Columbia.

Over the past 40 years, there have been many different ideas and efforts to bring this vision to life. Right now, this project at an identified specific location stands as the most tangible and promising initiative yet — with everything seemingly falling into place, according to its proponents.

“It’s the closest we’ve ever come to making this dream a reality. It’s the first of many steps, but it’s the most viable path forward that we have as a community,” Warren Dean Flandez, the founding chair of the newly created non-profit Filipino Legacy Society, told Daily Hive Urbanized in an interview.

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On Tuesday, the Government of Canada’s much-anticipated 2025 budget specifically mentioned federal funding support to build a new Filipino Community and Cultural Centre in Metro Vancouver.

This also already has the backing of the provincial government, which has identified it as one of its key new cultural facility priorities since 2022 — alongside the recently opened Chinese Canadian Museum and the upcoming South Asian Museum — and performed public consultation.

The project is also poised to receive early endorsement from the municipal government. Building on previous direction from the Vancouver City Council, a forthcoming member motion by Mayor Ken Sim and Councillor Lenny Zhou in support of a dedicated site and development building project is expected to receive City Council approval.

Crucially, the private sector is also on board. It has committed to providing a brand new purpose-built space that will serve as the Filipino community and cultural centre — giving this project not only political backing, but also a tangible home to grow into.

Through his real estate development company, PortLiving, Tobi Reyes told Daily Hive Urbanized he is proposing to redevelop 1940 Main St. — an auto shop and propane fuelling station — into an approximate 30-storey, mixed-use tower with substantial hotel uses within the upper levels and the major community and cultural centre for the Filipino community within the lower levels. The proposal still needs to go through the City’s various rezoning and permitting processes.

The specific development site for the hotel tower with the community centre is situated at the northeast corner of the intersection of Main Street and East 4th Avenue — a centrally-located area that is expected to see immense change and high-density growth over the coming decades, and vastly improved accessibility from its proximity to SkyTrain’s future Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station and Mount Pleasant Station. This is one of two high-rise, mixed-use hotel towers Reyes is looking to build in this specific area of Mount Pleasant.

1940 main street vancouver filipino cultural centre portliving hotel

Site of 1940 Main St., Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Existing condition:

Site of 1940 Main St., Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Future condition:

Preliminary concept of 1940 Main St., Vancouver, featuring hotel uses and the Filipino Community and Cultural Centre. (Formosis Architecture/PortLiving)

Prior to the pandemic, his company envisioned redeveloping 1940 Main St. into a six-storey, mixed-use condominium and retail/restaurant building, with the possibility of converting its 49 residential units into a hotel.

Based on a new concept designed by Formosis Architecture, other than the hotel lobby and some ground-level retail/restaurant space, most of the tower’s lower six levels will be dedicated to the 60,000 sq. ft. community and cultural centre operated by the non-profit organization. A portion of the developer’s revenues from the hotel uses will go toward supporting the centre’s ongoing costs for operations and programming, akin to an operating endowment.

The federal government’s new funding support is seen as a big nod for this project.

“It’s very significant. It’s appreciated. It’s a very solid commitment for the federal government to support building a Filipino cultural centre in Metro Vancouver. And it is really important and it’s deeply appreciated by the Filipino community,” Mable Elmore, the MLA for the riding of Vancouver-Kensington and a prominent member of the local Filipino community, told Daily Hive Urbanized in an interview.

While this project has been a long time in the making, it has taken on even greater significance in the wake of the tragic Lapu Lapu Day festival incident earlier this year — a loss that deeply shook both the Filipino and broader communities.

Elmore says the incident has only highlighted the need for a dedicated physical space for the community.

“I think it would just be a foundational, really critical project to have in place in terms of the healing process for the Filipino community, broader community in Vancouver. So, it’s a very powerful project to work towards,” she said.

Flandez echoed those sentiments, saying it shows that the Filipino community is valued and seen. In B.C., there are over 170,000 Filipino residents, with most of them living within Metro Vancouver.

He explained that the new centre will reduce the dependency on the long-standing practice of using ad hoc facilities in church basements, community halls, and public spaces. Instead, it will offer a dedicated, welcoming place where the Filipino community can come together — a home that is open and inviting to everyone.

“At the end of the day, it’s not about specific cultural groups or just uplifting one, but what it is about [is] bringing everyone together. The possibility of having something that we can really, truly claim as our own is incredible, but part of our culture is also inviting everyone,” said Flandez.

“It is ingrained in us from an early age that we are all about welcoming people in, feeding them… It’s all about that giving nature of Filipino values that truly, I think, defines us as a community.”

Preliminary concept of 1940 Main St., Vancouver, featuring hotel uses and the Filipino Community and Cultural Centre. (Formosis Architecture/PortLiving)

Flandez also believes the new centre will serve as a bridge for younger generations — offering Filipino youth a deeper connection to their heritage and a meaningful way to experience and preserve their culture close to home.

“I would have loved to have Filipino language classes, been exposed to our fashion, and our history. Even though I did have all of that with our food and other stuff, I didn’t necessarily connect that to a specific place. And so, to have everything under one roof with an art collection and all these different programs that can be collaborated with the broader community, and especially the Filipino community, there’s an opportunity to share the richness of our culture and history and be able to preserve that for generations to come,” said Flandez.

His organization will have a substantial empty shell space to fill in the tower, but he emphasized that consultation will be paramount for determining what kind of facilities, programming, and other uses will go in.

“We may be the ones bringing this project forward and helping to create that space, but the heart and soul of the Filipino community; they’re the ones that are going to fill that space with what is needed. We need to actively engage with the community once that motion passes,” he told Daily Hive Urbanized.

“We don’t want to dictate what that’s going to look like until we’ve heard from the entire community.”

But it is also important not to put the cart before the horse. For now, Flandez said, the main priority is to get shovels in the ground for the overall tower project — to ensure there is a physical space ready to be shaped by the community.

While the federal government has committed funding support for a new hub, the specific amount has yet to be determined.

Elmore reiterated the provincial government’s support for establishing a hub, but noted that when it comes to receiving provincial funding, they need to see and review the proposals before committing to the next steps.

“I really do want to thank Vancouver City Council and Mayor Ken Sim for making this a possibility. I want to thank the province and federal governments, all those stakeholders that have committed to making this a priority,” added Flandez.

“I think that it shows our community and the possibilities of what could be, and it provides so much more than just a place for us to have a brick and mortar building. It provides a place for us to really kind of nurture and plant our roots and really have a place that is solidified within the fabric of this entire country.”

The separate non-profit organization behind the new Chinese Canadian Museum within a heritage building in Vancouver’s Chinatown received over $50 million in public funding toward its project by the time it opened in 2023, including $48.5 million from the provincial government and $5 million from the federal government. As for the future South Asian Museum, the provincial government is still in the process of determining whether it should be located in Vancouver or Surrey.

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