Description of Historic Place

The Park Grocery and Woodside Apartments is a three-storey wood frame building located on a large corner lot at Eton and North Penticton Streets in the Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia. Historically, this area was known as Hastings Townsite. Prominently set on the east half of the lot at the property line, this vernacular corner store with apartments above was built in 1911.

Heritage Value

The Park Grocery and Woodside Apartments is important for its historic, cultural and aesthetic values as one of the earliest remaining commercial buildings in this part of east Vancouver.

The building is valued as representing an early form of commercial development in an area known at the time as Hastings Townsite. It was built in 1911, the same year that the Townsite residents voted to join with the City of Vancouver, before commercial activity had developed along Hastings Street to the south. At the time, buildings such as these provided a wide range of goods and services that would either be delivered or otherwise be sought out in the more established commercial areas of Vancouver. It provided the convenience of daily household goods, including at one time a meat market, within walking distance of many homes and was one of a series of such buildings in the neighbourhood located on Eton and McGill Streets. It also represents the beginning of a development boom in the local area brought on by the completion of the streetcar line along McGill Street out to Renfrew Street that coincided with the opening of the Vancouver Exhibition and the horse race track at Hastings Park.

The building is significant for its association with the original owner, Frank Woodside, who spearheaded the vote by residents of Hastings Townsite to join the City of Vancouver. The vote was held in 1910 and formally approved by the province in 1911. The building contained the offices of Frank Woodside for a number of years during his early tenure as Alderman representing the local area (1911-1928). The building's early name, Beacon Hill Grocery, is important for marking the promotion of the local area as it opened up to development, referencing its siting overlooking Vancouver's harbour and alluding to desirable neighbourhoods of the same name in other cities such as Boston and Victoria. The building is also of cultural value, in its later name, Park Grocery, given to the store in 1939 by then-owners Bunzo and Misu Watanabe. As Japanese-Canadians, a corner store was one of the few business opportunities available in the face of limitations to work in other businesses or professions. Their property was confiscated three years later, but the store name remained as the common name until the 1990s.

The Park Grocery and Woodside Apartments is aesthetically important for its strong presence on the site. It exhibits details common to pre-World War I vernacular wood frame corner stores and apartments, with upper floor bay windows on both street facings, a prominent overhang and large storefront windows.

Source: City of Vancouver, Planning and Development Services, Urban Design Division

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Park Grocery and Woodside Apartments are:

- continuous residential use of the upper floors
- no setback from the flanking streets
- ground floor set at grade
- large box volume
- flat roof with parapet and wide overhang with tongue-and-groove soffit material
- bay window form on both street facings extending from the second to third floors with double hung windows in each bay
- dedicated retail space on the ground floor
- original wood-framed storefront glazing including transom lites
- recessed storefront door set diagonally at corner
- remnant of doorway with transom facing Eton Street
- adapted residential entry door with transom facing North Penticton Street
- beveled lap siding
- corner boards and window trim boards