Description of Historic Place

The McConnell Block is a three storey plus lower level masonry commercial building, located in the historic district of Gastown, in a triangular block where Water Street joins West Cordova Street with frontages on both streets. It was built as a contiguous structure with the adjacent Jones Block.

Heritage Value

Gastown is the historic core of Vancouver, and is the city's earliest, most historic area of commercial buildings and warehouses. The McConnell Block is representative of the importance of Gastown as the trans-shipment point between the terminus of the railway and Pacific shipping routes, and the consequent expansion of Vancouver into western Canada's predominant commercial centre in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This structure is a clear indication of the extent and prosperity of commercial trade during the earliest period of the city's development. After the arrival of the transcontinental railway, office spaces were required for businesses related to the commercial activities of the area, and in 1890, G.S. McConnell commissioned this building to fill this need. McConnell was a prominent local citizen, and later served a two year term as city alderman.

The McConnell Block is also significant as an early design by architect Noble Stonestreet Hoffar (1843-1907). One of Vancouver's first architects, Hoffar made a considerable contribution to the evolution of the city in the period between 1886 and the mid-1890s with his design and construction of many of the city's largest and most substantial Victorian Italianate structures. The McConnell Block is a modest example of his work, built as a contiguous structure with the adjacent Jones Block. Its simple detailing, and the eccentric differences in detailing between the two halves of the structure, represents the vernacular, almost haphazard approach to construction in the first years of Vancouver's settlement, when building materials and financing were intermittently available.

Source: City of Vancouver, Heritage Planning Street Files

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the McConnell Block include:
- location on the south side of Water Street, in close proximity to the waterfront of Burrard Inlet and the Canadian Pacific Railway yard
- siting on the property lines, with no setbacks
- location on a trapezoidal lot, as a result of the irregular street layout of Gastown
- double street frontage on Water Street and West Cordova Street, as a result of the narrowing depth of the wedge-shaped lot
- modest form, scale and massing as exemplified by the three storey plus lower level height, flat roof and small footprint
- simple vernacular detailing typical of the first years of construction in Vancouver
- masonry construction: brick side walls; brick cladding on front facades with flush-struck mortar joints; massive granite sills on the south side; modest sandstone detailing; and simple corbelled brick cornice
- fenestration, including: two round-arched double-hung 2-over-2 wood-sash windows at the second floor on both street frontages; four double-hung 1-over-1 wood-sash windows in segmental arched openings at the third floor on both street frontages; and large rectangular storefront windows at ground level on both frontages
- iron I-beams with rosettes spanning the Cordova Street storefronts
- prefabricated round cast iron columns at storefronts
- surviving interior features such as original room layouts