Iconic Pink Pearl Restaurant eyed for affordable housing redevelopment

Iconic Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant eyed for affordable housing redevelopment

Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant at 1132 East Hastings Street, Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

The continued existence of Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant appears to be on borrowed time.

Daily Hive Urbanized has learned that the iconic restaurant at 1132 East Hastings Street at the eastern end of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is being eyed for redevelopment into affordable rental housing.

“We are excited about the opportunity to redevelop the property to bring more affordable housing to Vancouver,” a spokesperson for Atira Women’s Resource Society told Daily Hive Urbanized.

“However, the future of the project is uncertain, as we need BC Housing to partner with us on this site. We have sent the request to BC Housing leadership and await their response.”

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Preliminary plans for the redevelopment proposal call for a 160-ft-tall tower with roughly 336 homes, including about 266 affordable home ownership units and about 70 social housing units. An alternate preliminary concept calls for the same maximum tower height but added density with larger floor plates, containing a combined total of approximately 500 homes of a mix of affordable ownership housing, secured market rental housing, and social housing. However, both concepts are non-compliant with the City’s Downtown Eastside Plan.

Atira also noted that this potential redevelopment is strongly aligned with the provincial government’s new BC Builds program, which aims to catalyze and expedite affordable rental housing for middle-income households on “underused” land by non-profit housing organizations, churches, First Nations, universities, and other levels of government.

The provincial and federal governments are supporting the BC Builds program with nearly $5 billion in low-cost repayable financing and direct non-repayable funding.

So far, BC Builds has identified 20 initial project sites across the province, but this does not include the Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant redevelopment — at least not yet.

Retrieved records show the legally registered owner of the property, in trust, is currently Rosemary Toye, who serves on the board of the Kinbrace Community Society, which specializes in assisting refugees.

“BC Housing has not made any financial commitment to Atira Women’s Resource Society for the building at 1132 Hastings Street,” BC Housing told Daily Hive Urbanized upon inquiry.

“BC Housing looks forward to bringing additional BC Builds projects forward and will share more information as projects advance.”

Daily Hive Urbanized also reached out to the restaurant operator, who was taken aback, as they were unaware of a change in ownership of the property and the redevelopment plans. This would be “really sad,” they said.

According to the operator, Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant’s current lease contract will expire in late 2025.

Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant 1132 East Hastings Street Vancouver

Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant at 1132 East Hastings Street, Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

The restaurant has had a storied past in its four-decade-plus history at the location.

Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant opened at the southeast corner of the intersection of Glen Drive and East Hastings Street in 1980, and it is currently the oldest Chinese restaurant in Vancouver to operate at the same location it opened.

Its location lends to its proximity to Chinatown during the historic district’s heyday. Over the decades, the traditional Chinese restaurant was packed with large, multigenerational families squeezing into overflowing tables, including many new immigrants from Hong Kong. Even as the surrounding area changed, the restaurant stood as a symbol of continuity and community.

This is a significantly sized restaurant spanning 14,500 sq ft within a building first constructed in 1926. Its large dining capacity, along with a stage, has also made it a popular venue for banquets and gatherings, including many political events that engage with the Chinese community.

The award-winning restaurant suffered substantial fire damage in 2009, which led to a three-year closure to enable repairs.

Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant is also one of the last Chinese restaurants in Metro Vancouver that still serves dim sum on traditional rolling carts.

Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant at 1132 East Hastings Street, Vancouver. (Google Maps)

An adjacent corner lot to the west of 1132 East Hastings Street serves as the bulk of the restaurant’s surface vehicle parking. The main restaurant building lot at 1132 East Hastings Street spans 27,500 sq ft, while the parking lot at 1112 East Hastings Street is just over 13,000 sq ft.

In October 2022, Daily Hive Urbanized also reported five rental and social housing towers up to 260 ft tall are proposed by multiple separate entities within the vicinity of Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant.

This includes the site of 1168-1180 East Hastings Street, currently occupied by the three-storey Vernon Apartments SRO building, which is on the same city block immediately east of Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant. Records show the property last changed hands in a deal worth $3.7 million in December 2021.

Local developer Westbank intends to redevelop 1168-1180 East Hastings Street into a 183-ft-tall tower with 100% social housing units and a social enterprise space, which will meet the developer’s below-market housing obligations from its proposals to build market rental housing towers at the nearby sites of 1030-1070 East Hastings Street and 1115-1127 East Hastings Street.

The East Hastings Street corridor within the eastern end of the Downtown Eastside and the Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood is set to see immense changes from new high-density residential tower developments of primarily social housing and rental housing uses.

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