former office building across from st. paul's hospital converted into boutique hotel
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an old office building opposite st. paul’s hospital is being converted into a boutique hotel as demand for hotel rooms outstrips supply.
the major renovation of the former medical office building — across burrard street from the current location of the hospital — involves gutting ceilings, installing modern heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, and re-doing the plumbing.
“when we look at conversion projects, we need to see if the actual envelope of the project and the ceiling heights can easily adapt to accommodate all the rooms,” said stephanie babineau, vice-president of marketing for wentworth hospitality group, which is planning to open the 62-room arden hotel early next year. it will include a ground-floor restaurant.
wentworth already runs the loden hotel in downtown vancouver and several restaurants, including tableau bar bistro, homer st. café and bar, maxine’s cafe and bar, and folietta.
there is high demand for more hotel rooms in the downtown and yaletown neighbourhoods. there are many proposals in planning and several under construction. some are conversions of former condo or office spaces.
the arts and crafts hotel, which is slated to add 73 rooms when it is completed in mid-2026, was a 100-year-old printing-press office space on seymour street. other projects in metro vancouver involve converting parts of mixed-use or office towers into hotel rooms.
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one of the biggest challenges is having to reconfigure the building in order to turn offices into hotel rooms. office towers tend to have elevators in the middle of a round or square core in order to maximize access to window space.
the arden project, however, retains the building’s six-storey, low-rise, rectangular shape, and its original floor plan with an elevator in the centre of a long hallway, which was lined by offices that were mostly used for decades by medical and dental practices.
handout rendering of the arden hotel. the burrard medical building at 1144 burrard street will be transformed in to a 62 room boutique-style hotel, with retail space and restaurant operated by wentworth hospitality group. architect: ciccozzi architecture.
the burrard medical building, as it was known, was built during a time when the population was expanding and medical services around the hospital were expanding.
“they could group medical services in buildings like this, and there were several, and they were uniquely flexible in how they were set up and in that they were very changeable as practices grew or shrunk. there was a need for flexibility,” said heritage expert don luxton.
that arrangement likely makes it easier to convert to hotel rooms, said luxton.
the building was designed by local firm rhone and iredale, which created prominent vancouver landmarks such as what was known as the westcoast transmission building and is now the qube on west georgia street.
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“it’s in that brutalist style that we have come to know and love,” said luxton, describing the modern and utilitarian style popular from the 1950s through the 1970s.
he said that “having a variety of accommodations adds to the flavour of the city.”
babineau agreed that the company was drawn by the building’s “geometric, block-y kind of structure and the style that uses more raw materials like concrete.”
she said that the “potential to salvage and reuse materials and not have to demo and rebuild, that was another big one for us for cutting back construction times.”
some of the hotel rooms at the arden will face burrard street, while others will face a private lane behind, and two on each floor will face a courtyard.
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