Amid sustained demand, the accelerated pace of commercial development across Canada raises an important question: Are places dedicated for culture and the arts worth sacrificing for more industrial space in Canadian cities?<\/p>\n
The phenomenon has become especially apparent in Vancouver. Strathcona Business Improvement Association executive director Theodora Lamb recently described the city\u2019s situation as swiftly approaching \u201ccrisis levels.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSmaller tenants like artists and community services can no longer afford to keep their Strathcona roots, and the artist\u2019s community is not immune to that,\u201d Lamb explained, as quoted by the Vancouver Sun<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s losing what feeds the community, is what I would describe it as.\u201d<\/p>\n Former senior planner for the City of Vancouver Michael Gordon agreed that the vigorous pace of industrial development has made space for independent artists rare.<\/p>\n \u201cThey really can\u2019t afford to be in areas where condos are being sold,\u201d Gordon said.<\/p>\n Over the past few years, Low Tide Properties has rapidly purchased assets in East Vancouver in pursuit of its goal to invest in \u201cemerging neighbourhoods\u201d and own $1.5 billion in the city\u2019s real estate by 2026.<\/p>\n Among these acquisitions is an industrial space at 1305 Powell Street, which is being shared by two arts venues called Merge and Index.<\/p>\n The asset is now being \u201crenovicted\u201d by Low Tide, which bought the property in 2018.<\/p>\n \u201cI think more than any space shutting down, this one is where the community is most affected by it,\u201d according to Betty Mulat, co-founder of the Nuzi collective that focuses on the city\u2019s black and queer communities.<\/p>\n \u201cThese real estate developers don\u2019t understand the significance of these spaces,\u201d Mulat added. \u201cThese spaces give people purpose. They give people meaning in their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Amid sustained demand, the accelerated pace of commercial development across Canada raises an important question: Are places dedicated for culture and the arts worth sacrificing for more industrial space in Canadian cities? The phenomenon has become especially apparent in Vancouver. Strathcona Business Improvement Association executive director Theodora Lamb recently described the city\u2019s situation as swiftly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8380"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21973,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8380\/revisions\/21973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}