The White Block was built in 1903, when Main Street was called Westminster Avenue

During Vancouver’s pioneering days, many commercial buildings had a stone facade. But precious few have survived — and one of them just got demolished at 327 Main St.

The modest two-storey building was built in 1903, when Main Street was called Westminster Avenue. But it wasn’t on the city’s heritage register, and as a commercial structure, the city said no recycling was required as it was torn down.

This was evident last week, when a worker on a lift was smashing through second-storey windows with a long piece of wood. While the windows were being smashed in front, two excavators ripped apart the building at the back and crunched the remains.

Heritage advocate Robert McNutt thinks it’s a waste. In his view, the building facade could have been retained and reused in a new development, which has happened numerous times in the past.

But he says several old buildings in the Downtown Eastside have been demolished in recent years, with no salvage.

“They got The Only Seafood (building) down like that,” he said. “They got the Balmoral Hotel down like that.”

In fact, the west side of the 300-block of Main Street has all been demolished, aside from the Dawson Building at Hastings and Main.

Several buildings were torn down in June and July for a social housing project at 315 Main St., including the Imperial Theatre, which had been a thriving nightclub until COVID.

There had been a proposal to replace 327 Main St. with an eight-storey social housing building, but the development permit was cancelled on Nov. 17, 2025.

The building was purchased by a numbered company, 1552160 BC LTD, for $5.7 million on Aug. 28, 2025. Developer Bruno Wall is listed as a director of the company. Wall said, “We’re in preliminary discussions with the city and the province about building some affordable, perhaps supportive housing” on the site.

Heritage expert Don Luxton said 327 Main St. was initially known as the White Block. It was designed by Thomas Fee, a prominent architect, and cost $9,000. It started as two lots, but at some point was expanded to three.

There are so few early buildings left with stone facades. Luxton can name them.

“We see buildings like the Leckie Block on Granville Street, which is 1898, and the Flack Block (on Hastings), which is 1888-89,” he said. “They were building in stone in Romanesque revival right around that time period, but not really after.”

The first retailer to rent a space in the building was the Diamond Liquor Company, followed by the White Block dining room and a tailor named Tanabe. The Paris Restaurant was in one of the first floor spaces in the 1970s, and its sign stayed up for years after it closed.

Luxton said small buildings like this are in danger in the Downtown Eastside because they don’t have any heritage protection, unlike buildings in nearby Gastown and Chinatown.

Governments “couldn’t care less,” said Luxton.

“Right now, there’s no real policies to preserve much of anything in the Downtown Eastside, and there’s no money. There hasn’t even been that much research of these buildings or their value, or how they could (possibly) be preserved or even facaded to retain some sense of them.”

When the Vision Vancouver party had a majority at Vancouver City Hall, many old buildings were at least partially recycled when they were knocked down. When the Pantages Theatre was demolished in 2011, for example, it was deconstructed so that its bricks could be reused.

But that doesn’t seem to be happening anymore.

“A minimum salvage (deconstruction) requirement applies when you demolish a heritage-listed house, or a house built before 1910,” said an email from the city.

“Minimum reuse and recycling requirements apply when you demolish a house built before 1950. (But) when taking down a house that was built in or after 1950, there is no required reuse and recycling rate.

“When removing multi-family and commercial or industrial buildings, there is no minimum recycling and reuse rate, except when required as a condition of a rezoning approval.”