Victoria City Council to Consider Heritage Designation for Victoria Press Building
VICTORIA, Feb. 21, 2020 /CNW/ - Merchant House Capital has announced that on February 27, 2020, Victoria City Council will be considering an application to designate the Victoria Press Building (the former Times Colonist Building at 2621 Douglas St.) a heritage building.
With a history that predates the City of Victoria and indeed, Canada itself, the Times Colonist has roots which go back over 150 years, while its various iterations over that period have been managed and edited by four BC premiers, two city mayors, and one senator.
Acquired in late 2017 by Merchant House Capital, the Victoria Press Building has recently been approved for a building permit which anticipates a twenty-seven million dollar renovation of the building, transforming its 130,000sq ft newspaper production and office facility into a mixed-use campus, office environment featuring a roof-top common area, distillery, and the historic Press Hall converted into an expansive atrium lobby on Kings Road. The building will be seismically upgraded, to include complete replacement of the building's electrical and mechanical systems, while the post-modern facades and gardens along Douglas Street and Kings Road will be restored and preserved.
A rare example of post-modern architecture, reflecting growing economic confidence and the cultural and social significance of a daily newspaper integral to an emerging city's identity, the renovation of the Victoria Press Building represents a unique opportunity to preserve Victoria's cultural heritage while adding significant economic life to a functionally obsolescent building through sustainable building practices of adaptive repurposing, a core Merchant House value.
"Making Headlines in Midtown", the project seeks to create greater recognition of the Humber Green urban village, accelerating the objectives of the City of Victoria's Official Community Plan and Burnside Gorge Neighborhood Plan by creating a dynamic mixed-use office space option for large floor-plate tenants on the northern edge of the downtown core. The Times Colonist will remain a tenant of the project.
SOURCE Merchant House Capital
David Fulbrook, CEO Development & Acquisitions, [email protected]; Paul Silk, President, COO, [email protected]
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