Description of Historic Place

The Swift Canadian Packing House and Office Building is a six storey plus basement reinforced concrete and brick structure occupying its entire lot, with a six storey main block and a two storey addition to the east side. It is located on Maple Tree Square on the north side of Water Street, at the convergence of Alexander, Powell, Carroll and Water Streets in the historic district of Gastown.

Heritage Value

Gastown is the historic core of Vancouver, and is the city's earliest, most historic area of commercial buildings and warehouses. This building is representative of a fireproof warehouse building from the early twentieth century. As Vancouver prospered, warehouses were built on piles on infilled water lots between Water Street and the Canadian Pacific Railway trestle. The original 1912 building was designed by the Swift and Company's Construction Department as a four storey meat warehouse and packing plant, with two storeys added in 1925. The massive cubic form, high density, large clear-span floor-plate and notable height of this structure are a clear indication of the extent and prosperity of wholesale trade during this period. Additional office spaces were required for the expanding business, and the two storey addition to the east, which also included loading bays, was constructed in 1918.

The Swift Canadian Packing House and Office Building 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 early twentieth century. It also illustrates the development of an extensive food distribution network that grew in response to the rapidly growing local population.

Source: City of Vancouver, Heritage Planning Street Files

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Swift Canadian Packing House and Office Building include:
- prominent corner location on the north side of Water Street, in close proximity to the waterfront of Burrard Inlet and the Canadian Pacific Railway yard
- irregular form, scale and parallelogram massing, with a six storey plus basement flat-roofed block to the west, and a two-storey flat-roofed block to the east
- exterior features such as stepped parapets, decorative precast concrete sills, brick and concrete raised cross patterns on the addition and window corner block detailing
- reinforced concrete construction enabling large clear span floor plates, visible on the inside including octagonal columns with flared caps in the original block, and octagonal columns with rectangular beams in the addition
- brick cladding, including: high-fire pressed brick with narrow mortar joints on the front facade of the original building; tan brick on the two main facades of the addition; and common red brick on the rear and west side facades
- fenestration, including regular grid of window openings on the front facade of the original building and triple assembly double-hung 3-over-1 wood sash windows in the addition
- ghosting of 'Swift Canadian Co.' signs on front and side facades
- shipping/receiving bays at the rear and east side