Tracing the roots: Bridgepoint Market before River Rock Casino Resort

1989/1990, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

British Columbia’s largest casino, River Rock Casino Resort, which is located immediately north of Bridgeport SkyTrain Station on Richmond’s Fraser River waterfront, will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2024.

The casino-hotel resort complex is undergoing its largest refresh since it first opened on June 25, 2004.

Its 70,000 sq ft casino is the largest in the province, featuring 1,100 slot machines, 75 live table games, and 104 electronic table games. The casino has nearly 400 hotel guest rooms, including the 2011-built secondary hotel wing, a five-storey vertical hotel expansion with 193 hotel guest rooms above the SkyTrain station’s park-and-ride structure.

You might also like:

The hotel features 20,000 sq ft of meeting and convention space, the 1,000-seat River Rock Show Theatre, and a range of food and beverage options, including several new restaurants slated to open later this year, such as a new Gordon Ramsay Steak restaurant.

The success of River Rock Casino Resort, further solidified by the 2009 opening of SkyTrain’s Canada Line, led the City of Richmond to designate the Bridgeport area around the transit hub as a commercial-only zone for an entertainment district.

Over the coming years, this area will be overwhelmingly bolstered by the redevelopment of the adjacent 22-acre vacant “Duck Island” site just to the east — the location of the seasonal Richmond Night Market event. The outdoor night market’s site will be developed into a 3.4 million sq ft commercial-only district with significant hotel, office, entertainment, retail, dining, and indoor marketplace uses. This includes up to about 2,000 hotel guest rooms, with Hilton selected as the hotel operator in the project’s first phase.

But before River Rock Casino Resort became a cornerstone of Metro Vancouver’s entertainment offerings and the anchor of the Bridgeport area, Bridgepoint Market occupied the 10-acre site.

Premier Bill Vander Zalm presided over Bridgepoint Market’s grand opening in 1989.

1990, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

1989, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

This was intended to be a marketplace attraction akin to Granville Island Public Market, Lonsdale Quay Market, and New Westminster Quay Market (now known as River Market), which strategically take advantage of their waterfront locations by incorporating extensive attractive waterside public spaces, such as boardwalks.

The success of Granville Island Public Market, built in 1979, led to the construction of similar concepts of Lonsdale Quay Market and New Westminster Quay Market in 1986, just in time for the Expo ’86 World’s Fair.

Driving across the Oak Street Bridge or the Arthur Laing Bridge, the warehouse-sized building of Bridgepoint Market was impossible to miss. Its faux fisherman’s wharf building design, red sloped roof with large “Bridgepoint Market” signage, and tall clock tower made it a prominent landmark.

1990, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

1989, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

This cavernous indoor space with an open floor area contained numerous kiosks and retail units selling freshly prepared food and beverages, artisan goods, and merchandise.

As part of Bridgepoint Market, an expansive wooden boardwalk and pier that wraps around a marina was built on the north side of the building, fronting the river.

However, Bridgepoint Market proved to be unsuccessful and had a very short lifespan.

Its location in the highly industrialized area of Bridgeport — which was also at the time an area behind a freight railway between the Marpole CP Rail Bridge (Vancouver) and Steveston — proved to be an unusual choice at the time, making it less accessible and appealing for such an attraction.

1989, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

1990, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

1989, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

1990, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

1989, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

Bridgepoint Market also faced competition from not only Granville Island Public Market, Lonsdale Quay Market, and New Westminster Quay Market, but particularly from various other new major shopping mall attractions located nearby just to the south along the No. 3 Road corridor.

The original Aberdeen Mall (now known as Aberdeen Centre and Aberdeen Square) opened in 1990, followed by Parker Place in 1993, and Yaohan Centre and Presidential Plaza in 1994.

These destinations down the road were designed to cater to Richmond’s rapidly growing population of new immigrants from Hong Kong in the 1980s and the 1990s.

1991, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

1990, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

To further intensify the competition, the Richmond Public Market opened in the Richmond City Centre area in 1994. With a concept similar to Bridgepoint Market, it benefited from a more central location, being close to CF Richmond Centre and Lansdowne Mall. This was also a time when CF Richmond Centre underwent a major expansion and merger into a single indoor mall.

Bridgepoint Market closed some years later and was demolished and redeveloped into River Rock Casino Resort.

To this day, the 130-slip marina and major sections of the waterfront boardwalk and pier from the Bridgepoint Market era remain intact, having been upgraded as part of the original construction of the casino resort.

However, the marina has been closed for about five years since the onset of the pandemic. As part of River Rock Casino Resort’s 20th-anniversary refresh of the property, the casino’s operator will be dredging the marina to enable its reopening later in 2024.

Previous condition of the marina built for Bridgepoint Market:

1990, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

1993, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

1990, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

Condition of the marina as part of River Rock Casino Resort:

The marina at River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond. (Rigucci/Shutterstock)

Circa late 2000s: River Rock Casino Resort Hotel and the marina (foreground), with SkyTrain Canada Line construction and the previous aggregate (concrete materials) plant at the current site of the Richmond Night Market at Duck Island (background). (Marinas)

However, there is some degree of uncertainty over the longer-term operation and ownership of River Rock Casino Resort before its 40th anniversary.

In 2007, following a court decision, the Musqueam First Nation gained the title to the land on which the casino resort complex was built, in addition to a $20 million cash settlement. Great Canadian Gaming Corporation’s lease for the resort complex expires in the early 2040s, and First Nations leadership previously expressed interest in pursuing a revenue-sharing agreement in the future.

And perhaps Bridgepoint Market was ahead of its time.

The adjacent future mixed-use commercial-only redevelopment of the Richmond Night Market site plans to include a new “Market Hall” building at the southern end of the property during the third phase of construction. The aim is to transform the existing seasonal outdoor market into a permanent attraction, featuring 66,700 square feet of indoor space and 5,000 square feet of additional outdoor space on the adjacent plazas and river balcony.

Unlike Bridgepoint Market, the new Market Hall will not be a standalone attraction. It will be integrated into a dynamic environment featuring future hotels, offices, retail spaces, restaurants, and entertainment venues. Additionally, its location will benefit from the nearby River Rock Casino Resort, other future developments, and the regional accessibility provided by the SkyTrain station.

1991, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

1990, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

1989, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

1991, Bridgepoint Market. (City of Richmond Archives)

You might also like: