Chinatown changes bring cash and concerns
Last Updated: Monday, April 21, 2008 | 9:14 AM PT
CBC News
An influx of new businesses is changing the face of Vancouver's historic Chinatown, but longtime merchants have mixed feelings about the new prospects.
In the past year, a number of mainstream coffee shops and stores have taken up residence in the neighbourhood, including a large Waves 24-hour coffee shop set to open its doors in the heart of the neighbourhood, on the corner of Main Street and East Pender Street.
Vancouver's Chinatown merchants are bracing for change promised by new developments and new customers.
(Mike Laanela/CBC)
Syrus Lee, a director with the Chinatown Business Improvement Area Society, said that kind of development is what the neighbourhood has needed for a long time.
"This is the new 24-hour coffee shops coming down to Chinatown — I mean real Canadian Canadian coffee shop — we have lots of Hong Kong-style coffee shops," said Lee.
But some old-time merchants worry that with so many big businesses moving in, their rents will shoot up and drive out the traditional businesses that give the neighbourhood its distinctive sights, smells and flavours.
More people spending money in Chinatown are needed, agrees Vince Law, the manager of a traditional herbal shop across the street from the new Waves coffee shop.
But he worries some of the area's oldest stores, like his, will soon be unable to survive.
"The only issue I worry about is the rent, and hopefully the rent's not going up like crazy," said Law.
But Lee said Chinatown has been losing business to stiff competition from other Chinese shopping areas in Richmond and Vancouver for too long, and he believes a mix of new and old will be the key to Chinatown's survival.
And with a new condominium nearing completion and the Tinseltown shopping mall and multiplex movie theatre still attracting new businesses, the area is poised for a big change, according to Lee.
"Before there were no residents in Chinatown, but now all those highrises will bring a very good-spending yuppie bunch," said Lee.
Lee points to the Dollar Giant that just moved to the Tinseltown mall, along with a handful of boutique furniture stores.
"More mainstream people or businessmen start seeing the opportunity in Chinatown, so they start moving in — not just Chinese merchants in Chinatown now," said Lee.
