The Salient Group

Shelley Penner's new shop is located in the 110-year-old Flack Building kitty-corner to Vancouver's Victory Square, "Sustainable," or green, shoppers are her target market. In the Flack Building, of course, her customers will enter an exemplar of the green experience in the city, a building reclaimed and recycled recently by the Salient Group.

Living Green – Breaking new ground in providing decision-making sales support
Shelley Penner says merchants need to provide more in-store information and she is practising what she preaches in her new shop
Vancouver Sun
by Kim Davis
June 13, 2009

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a “savvy shopper” smartphone application: an app that allowed a person considering a purchase to type in a product name and return all the details needed to make a decision reflecting that person’s budget and values – ingredients or materials, durability and longevity assessments, cost comparisons.

While eco-labelling and the Internet are helping to qualify product claims and make product information more readily available, Shelley Penner of Penner & Associates Interior Design feels that merchants need to do more to communicate at point-of-sale.

“Retailers need to respond to the changing expectations of consumers,” she says, “Consumers are not automatons with credit cards, they are much more savvy than a lot of retailers give them credit for, people are thirsty for knowledge.”

Continue reading “Vancouver Sun: P+A Furniture: Breaking new ground in providing decision-making sales support” »

Mike Rowlands of Octopus Strategies, one of the tenants at the Flack Block, wrote an interesting piece for their e-newsletter, and it was brought to our attention. Mike shares a bit of Flack Block’s Vancouver’s history, and combines it with some interesting business tips about how collaboration might just be the answer in today’s economic times. A great piece worth taking a look at.

The Legacy of Tommy’s Gold

The climb was more than Tom had bargained for. One foot in front of the other. Again, again, again. Onward. Upward.

The infamous Chilkoot Pass seemed to tower unassailable, far above his head. Yet limbs screaming, he plodded on, and on, eventually cresting the peak, and moving down to stake his claim: Tom had joined the gold rush.

By 1897, Thomas Flack had found gold, and returned with his fortune to the young city of Vancouver on Canada’s pristine west coast. There, he set about to build a landmark building at the centre of the city.

The William Blackmore-designed masterpiece would open in 1898, serving as home to retailers, barristers, insurance agents and others. Its location and style made it a treasured part of Vancouver’s heritage.

Yet like the neighbourhood to its east, The Flack Block fell into disrepair. For much of the past 100 years, the building has gone unnoticed….

The story is continued, and those great tips on business collaboration can be found over on the Octopus Strategies website.

The City of Vancouver Heritage Commission has awarded four of the Salient Group’s developments for building rehabilitation as follows:

The Flack Block, 163 West Hastings Street, an Award of Honour for structural, seismic and building systems upgrading, sustainable interiors, locally crafted stone façade components, reinstated areaways, extensive exterior restoration, and a compatible contemporary rooftop addition.

The Bowman Block, 528 Beatty Street, as Award of Merit for the mindful, restrained exterior preservation, rehabilitation, and adaptive reuse to commercial and residential, including a compatible contemporary loft addition.

The Paris Block, 53 West Hastings Street, an Award or Recognition for its rescue, rehabilitation and adaptive reuse, and for the social and economic benefit the project provides to the downtown neighbourhood.

The Lumbermen’s Building, 509 Richards Street, an Award of Recognition for its rehabilitation and structural upgrade, including exposing the original banking hall ceiling, and providing high quality ground floor use and office space.

>> See the complete list of our awards on the Awards page.

Robert Fung has turned some of Vancouver’s worst eyesores into high-end housing. But the financing model he used to cover the added expense of saving the city’s grand old buildings has run into a brutal new reality.

Globe and Mail – Heritage projects suffer collateral damage in downturn

Kerry Gold
Special to The Globe and Mail
Friday, May. 15, 2009

Developer Robert Fung stands on Water Street in Vancouver’s Gastown, surveying a row of heritage buildings that comprise one of the city’s most beautiful streetscapes.

They represent some of the city’s oldest buildings, and each of them had been long neglected until Mr. Fung came along and restored them as work, retail and condo spaces.

“He’s the poster child of heritage,” says Heritage Vancouver president Don Luxton.

But with the downturn in British Columbia’s property markets, Mr. Fung now sees himself tied to a complex financing model that no longer works.

The Alhambra building, circa 1887, anchors Water Street, the most historic block in the city. It is part of Mr. Fung’s $60-million, three-phase, five-building project that involves “a high level of heritage restoration.” The condo building Terminus, once on Heritage Vancouver’s Top Ten Endangered Sites list, is the first phase. The heritage building, with its sleek, uniquely modern interior, is finished and mostly occupied. The Garage condos next door, once the location for the city’s first jailhouse, will be complete by November.

Continue reading “Globe and Mail – Heritage projects suffer collateral damage in downturn” »

Artisans in the Canadian workshop of Architectural Stone Masonry work on aspects of the re-created entry for Vancouver’s Flack Block. “It was all done by hand,” ASM founder Tony Rogac says. “No machine touched any of that stone.” The detail shows the careful hammer-and-chisel technique needed to produce an intricate, finely detailed ornamental piece.

Traditional Building magazine recently had an article about the building of The Flack Block’s hand-carved limestone archway. Construction has recently finished on the building, and the archway has been completed for some time, but we thought we’d share this feature with those of you who wanted to know more about the creation of the archway, and the local stone carvers still practicing this craft.

You can see the full article here.

The Flack Block was featured on Global TV yesterday (April 7). There is a lot of interest in the positive change community health that neighbourhood heritage rehabilitation can bring. We’re pretty excited about it.

You can see the video here. (edit: video is no longer live on the GlobalTV website)

The Flack Block also has it’s own Facebook group, and you can find it here. Lots of new photos added to the group, including beautiful detail photos of the hand-carved limestone archway can be seen in the gallery.

Vancouver urban design magazine, re:place has published a story about the opening of the Flack Block. Below is their story. I encourage you to take a few moments to look at their website – lots of Vancouver history (in ‘5 minute’ segments) and green content as well.

After two years of restoration by The Salient Group, and an intensive period of tenant space renovation by Renewal Partners, the 1898 Flack Block recently celebrated its official re-opening. The Flack Block is the new home to theTides/Renewal Centre, a collection of socially progressive businesses including Renewal Partners, Tides Canada, Hollyhock Leadership Institute, Forest Ethics, Rainforest Solutions Project, Penner & Associates sustainable design, and Raised Eyebrow Communications, among others.

Under the leadership and commitment of Renewal Partners, the Tides/Renewal centre office renovation in the Flack Block will achieve a LEED Gold for Commercial Interiors certification from the Canada Green Building Council. This designation is among the first in Canada in a heritage building that will be made available to lease.

You can see the rest of the story here: