Redevelopment near Gastown approved for veterans' supportive housing | Daily Hive

Heritage redevelopment near Gastown approved for new supportive housing for seniors and veterans

2025 revised concept with supportive housing for 343 West Pender St., Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/Chard Development)

This past fall, the City of Vancouver’s Development Permit Board (DPB) approved a project that marks a notable shift for a small but prominent site near Gastown in downtown Vancouver.

The heritage building at 343 West Pender St. — best known in recent years as the former home of Finch’s Tea House, which operated there until 2024 — will now become an eight-storey, purpose-built supportive housing development for seniors and veterans who are at risk of homelessness, and/or have mental health or addiction issues.

The property is located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Homer Street and West Pender Street.

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This recent approval capped an evolution for the project.

Years earlier, Chard Development proposed a heritage commercial-only redevelopment reaching up to seven storeys, containing about 900 sq. ft. of retail and 1,900 sq. ft. of restaurant uses on the ground level, and 31,500 sq. ft. of office space within the upper levels. This previous commercial-only concept received its DPB approval in April 2022.

But the redevelopment’s future has now been reshaped by the prolonged weak office space market, as well as a desire to generate additional deeply affordable housing and replace more aging and dilapidated SROs.

Instead of new office and retail/restaurant uses, there will be a total of 94 supportive housing units operated by the 2013-founded not-for-profit organization Whole Way House, which specializes in operating affordable housing buildings for seniors and veterans, such as the Veteran’s Memorial Manor in Railtown.

343 west pender street vancouver supportive housing veterans seniors whole way house

Site of 343 West Pender St., Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Site of 343 West Pender St., Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/Chard Development)

Existing condition:

Site of 343 West Pender St., Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/Chard Development)

Site of 343 West Pender St., Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Previously cancelled concept with office and retail/restaurant space:

Cancelled 2022 office and retail/restaurant concept: 343 West Pender St., Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/Chard Development)

Future condition with supportive housing:

2025 revised concept with supportive housing for 343 West Pender St., Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/Chard Development)

Jenny Konkin, the president and co-founder of Whole Way House, said there is a need for such supportive housing buildings oriented around the needs of seniors, with nearly a quarter of Metro Vancouver’s homeless population being seniors. Currently, at-risk seniors are being placed in regular supportive housing, which she says can make them very vulnerable.

“We want to ensure that they have a safe place that’s actually designed for them. I’m really grateful to Chard, City staff, and BC Housing for working with us to create a designated project… Everyone’s been very, very supportive,” said Konkin during the DPB public meeting, highlighting that they also received a letter of strong endorsement from Vancouver mayor Ken Sim.

Her organization currently supports over 900 seniors in Metro Vancouver, with many coming directly from homeless shelters, hospitals, SROs, or other supportive housing.

“To have a building like this designed for them, I think will be a really big advancement, especially for our SRO replacement plan, which will need to continue forward. So we’re really excited to be able to bring seniors into a safe place where they have support,” she continued.

Konkin also shared that Chard Development initiated the idea, approaching her organization to explore repurposing the project to meet the housing needs of at-risk seniors and veterans.

“When they had already designed the building, as in the structure was there, it was really interesting, because obviously, the proximity to Victory Square, and our specializing with veterans who have experienced homelessness, as well as seniors, and being a little bit outside of the Downtown Eastside core, provides some safety features,” said Konkin.

Working closely with the developer, her team’s input led to the incorporation of studio units — as opposed to one-bedroom units — for more optimal flexibility for seniors and people with disabilities, as well as the addition of a second elevator for capacity and redundancy purposes.

2025 revised concept with supportive housing for 343 West Pender St., Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/Chard Development)

BC Housing is providing support to Chard Development for the project’s revised direction.

As well, during the public meeting, Byron Chard, president and CEO of Chard Development, also noted that a donor had committed more than $1 million to fund expanded shared rooftop amenity spaces for residents. As a result, the number of supportive housing units has been reduced from the previously proposed 96 to 94 to enable the creation of more common areas.

The 6,200 sq. ft. sloped development site includes the heritage Hartney Chambers Building, designed by architect William F. Gardiner and built in 1908. Its West Pender Street facade — featuring projecting cornices and a central pediment, and masonry with the rare use of Oamaru limestone imported from New Zealand — has long contributed to the historic streetscape near Victory Square.

While Finch’s Tea House gave the building a contemporary use in its most recent years, the underlying structure faced significant limitations for other uses. Furthermore, it has been determined that the full retention of the building is not technically viable.

For this reason, only the heritage facade will be preserved, supported internally by a newly constructed structure that will rise five storeys above it.

At the north end of the site, a second existing building will be demolished to allow for a completely new interior and exterior structure. This building — the two-storey World Building, constructed in 1892 — is not listed on the heritage register, as its original architectural value has been largely lost through extensive alterations over time. The World Building was constructed as a newspaper printing shop, but in more recent years it was used as the Platinum Club, a strip club.

This project’s size is also made possible by a 10 per cent density bonus in exchange for the preservation and restoration of the Hartney Chambers Building facade. Altogether, there will be nearly 40,500 sq. ft. of total building floor area.

The project is designed by Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership, the architectural firm that also led the original commercial space concept for the site.

2025 revised concept with supportive housing for 343 West Pender St., Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/Chard Development)

By the end of the meeting, support for the project was unanimous across DPB voting directors, who are City staff, and non-voting advisory panel members.

“First of all, the use. Perhaps it’s needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway — much needed social housing, including supportive housing units for seniors and veterans at risk of homelessness. Such an acute need, wholeheartedly supportive of that, obviously,” said Matt Shillito, the City’s director of special projects, planning, urban, design, and sustainability, and one of the voting DPB directors.

“It’s a very high quality scheme. I think it’ll bring a very positive contemporary addition to the area while also respecting the historic character of the area.”

It should be noted that the one block radius around the intersection of West Pender Street and Homer Street already has a high concentration of supportive housing, social housing, transitional housing, and homeless shelters and other services for at-risk people, such as The Salvation Army Belkin House, Central City Lodge, Hutchison Block, Pacific Coast Apartments, Covenant House Vancouver, C’ow aa Housing (previously Ramada Vancouver Downtown Hotel, until it was acquired by BC Housing in 2021 for its conversion into rapid supportive housing), and the particularly problematic Hotel Canada SRO, which sees exceedingly high frequencies of police and fire rescue visits.

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