The Salient Group

Paris Annex: C’est bonne
New building and 1907 Paris Block next door are ‘fraternal twins’

Barbara Gunn, Westcoast Homes
Published: Saturday, October 11, 2008

The affable Robert Fung, founder of a development company that has been largely focused on restoring Vancouver’s historic downtown district, can think of three reasons that drive his passion for social sustainability.

They are six, five and three years old — and they are his daughters.

“I love this city and I’d like them to grow up here,” says the 42-year-old president of the Salient Group, sipping an Americano in one of his favourite Gastown eateries.

“I’d like it to be a city that they want to live in, where they can make a living, where they can accommodate the cost of housing, a city that’s diverse and where there’s a great deal of understanding, where there are options in places to live, and where, environmentally, there’s an understanding of the impact of the things we do on the bigger picture of the world.”

Fung, an Ontario native who developed a fondness for Vancouver soon after he moved here 20 years ago — “It gets in your blood pretty quickly,” he says — is doing his best, a project at a time, to shape parts of the city he envisions for his little girls.

His company currently has some 100,000 square feet of heritage office space complete, or nearing completion, in some of Vancouver’s most historic neighbourhoods, and a project list that includes Gastown’s Alhambra, Garage and Terminus buildings, the Flack Block on Hastings, the Bowman Block on Beatty and the Taylor Building on Water Street — the latter two winners of Urban Development Institute’s excellence awards.

Continue reading “HouseHunting.ca: Paris Annex: C’est bonne” »

Evoke is Robert Edmonds, graphic artist (on left) and architect David Nicolay (right).

We’d like to express our congratulations to David Nicolay of Evoke International Design for being named Western Living Magazine’s Interior Designer of the year.

Evoke has worked on several of our latest projects including terminus, Garage on Water Street and The Paris Block and Paris Annex buildings on West Hastings Street.

David Nicolay talks about the terminus project from The Salient Group on Vimeo.

See the story below:

From award-winning homes to neighbourhood watering holes and hip T-shirts, this design firm redefines casual modern living.

By Jim Sutherland

Some interior design partnerships are headed by highly focused individuals possessing intimidating training and credentials along with a laser-like sense of purpose. Other partnerships consist of, well, an architect and a graphic artist who branched into interiors primarily to outfit the bars and restaurants they wanted to hang out in.

The latter partnership describes Vancouver’s Evoke International Design, headed by David Nicolay, the architect, and Robert Edmonds, the graphic artist. And while the duo’s route to running a seven-person interior design practice may have been circuitous, that doesn’t take anything away from their work, lauded by judge Kelly Deck for its “authentic flair” and “attention to materials and atmosphere.”

terminus kitchen

Today, residential work takes up a large chunk of Evoke’s design energy. As a double-threat architect and interior designer, Nicolay was responsible for a Vancouver home (seen here) that in 2006 was named a North American Home of the Year by Metropolitan Home magazine. Other residences are at various stages of design—in some cases, Nicolay notes, their progress hampered by local zoning regulations that penalize contemporary design Much of Evoke’s recent work has been on condominiums, particularly collaborations with Acton-Ostry Architects for Vancouver developers Townline and also the Salient Group, which specializes in converting warehouses and other heritage buildings. Judge Raymond Girard lauds what he calls “real” (as opposed to “soft”) lofts. “How clever to turn utilitarian spaces like kitchens and bathrooms into sculptural elements, spicing up smaller loft spaces without cramming them full of stuff, materials and textures.”

The seed of the Nicolay and Edmonds collaboration dates to the mid-1990s and a memorable Vancouver restaurant in the Kitsilano neighbourhood called Tangerine, which Nicolay and family members launched to fill what he describes as “a keenly felt void of cozy, stylish places to eat and drink.” That soon led to other restaurant work, both as designers and proprietors. Vancouver’s Figmint and Metro restaurants are recent projects, each displaying sophisticated takes on neo-modernism. Evoke and partners also designed Main Street haunts Habit and the Cascade Room, the latter a slightly off-key riff on post-war England. Both continue a tradition of rooms that, true to the company name, suggest rather than accurately describe a style or period. Paul Lavoie describes them as “fresh spaces with thoughtfulness for heritage and reality.”

The firm was recently hired for a condominium development in Victoria. A line of T-shirts featuring vivid graphic treatments by Edmonds is also ready to go. Not everyone can live in an Evoke product but at least we can all wear one.

See the original story here, and an article the Globe & Mail posted here.

Rendering of Paris Annex, and Paris Block on the left.

Westcoast homes – Paris Block ‘Annex’ Homes Soon For Sale

Saturday, June 14, 2008
Vancouver Sun 

More than a century may separate the Salient Group’s new Paris Annex from the 29-residence restored Paris Block (right) at Hastings and Abbott In the Downtown Eastside, but they still have plenty in common. ‘The Annex will complement its neighbour in design and purpose,’ a Salient news release says, ‘These two buildings will share corridors, stairs and an elevator, and the juxtaposition of old and new speaks for The Salient Group’s commitment to sensitive development in Vancouver’s original neighbourhood.’ The Paris Block, built in 1907, sold out last summer. 

The six-storey building kept its painted brick façade, its turn-of-the-century cornices, sills and centre-pivoting windows. The homes in the new Paris Annex, with its minimal concrete frame and glass and aluminum façade, will range in size from 689 square feet to 1.415 square feet with prices starting at under $400,000. Salient expects to begin selling later this month.

Robert Fung at one of his projects, the Paris Block on Hastings Street.

The Globe and Mail
Friday, Oct. 5, 2007
By Kerry Gold

Burnishing a Dusty Gem
The developer pioneers are moving into Gastown and the downtown east side: “Nobody kids themselves they’re moving into Disneyland,” says the leader of the pack, Robert Fung.

For as long as most Vancouverites can remember, the heritage district of Gastown has been a draw for tourists, night clubbers and vagrants. 

Architects, designers and entertainment types who opted for character buildings over sterile office towers quietly set up business there. A few condos went up over the years, inhabited mostly by singletons who’d get married and move on. 

And although it contains some of the city’s most historically important and beautiful buildings, it’s hardly been a place to set down roots. 

Surrounded by soup kitchens and social services outposts, the potentially pretty neighbourhood with cobblestone streets also butts up against the drug-addled war zone that is the infamous downtown eastside. 

Restaurateur Sean Heather opened the successful Irish Heather restaurant-pub 11 years ago, right by the Gassy Jack statue, because rent was cheap. As one of the first businessmen to commit to investIng there in the long-term, he is considered a pioneer, one of the few brave hearts who dared take on the troubled area. 

“We’ve certainly always been there for Gastown, always pushed it whenever we could,” Mr. Heather says. “The Heather was opened on a shoestring, and probably by year two was good. We’ve been making a decent living out of it ever since. But you have to have the right product, the right temperament, all these things.” 

After years of mere talk about revitalization of the area, Mr. Heather began to notice a palpable, exciting change In the last couple of years. It’s a change brought about by intense market demand for more housing in urban areas, and a city tax incentive program that made it worthwhile for developers to convert heritage buildings to condos. 

“We noticed that the buildings got sold and were bought up by people who then got hanging around and were going to change things,” he says. “We started to see customers coming in that were developers. People were talking about Woodward’s, and it looked like it was going to happen. And when things suddenly look like they’re going to happen, that’s the big change.” 

Continue reading “Globe & Mail: Burnishing a Dusty Gem” »

London Drugs is the first retail outlet to commit publicly to the redevelopment at the old downtown Vancouver Woodward’s site. The B.C. based Western Canadian chain will open a 33,878-square-foot, two-level store at the site in the fall of 2009. Both the main floor and second floor sections will contain approximately 17,000 square feet.

In size, it will be on a par with some of the newer outlets in the 66-store chain.

Construction will begin this fall.

The 1911 Paris Block building on Hastings Street: next up for conversion.

Lofts to Love
Salvaging the last of Vancouver’s heritage structures
By Peter Mitham
July/August 2007

PULL QUOTE: “Our whole goal is always to touch these spaces pretty lightly” Interior designer David Nicoloy of Evoke lnternotionol Designs Inc.

Turning derelict old Vancouver offices and warehouses into loft condominiums entails some of the challenges that face a homeowner renovating an older house: hidden surprises, higher-than-anticipated costs and a steep learning curve. 

This spring, the Salient Group brought one of the latest projects to market, the Paris building at 51 West Hastings. Completed in 1911, the five-storey former shoe factory is typical of the conversions taking place elsewhere in Vancouver’s historic core. When renovations are completed late next year, the building will feature 29 homes of approximately 750 square feet catering to buyers with a zest for urban living. Currently, Salient has started work on the Garage, which will combine an 1899 rope factory and a 1930-era auto centre into live/work spaces. 

But the demands in crafting trendy homes from old commercial space are daunting. 

“These small, infill sites really have to be in the right location,” explained Rick Ilich, president of the Townline Group of Richmond, which moved into the urban core in 2005 with an ambitious plan for six properties with a total of 197 homes in the Crosstown and Yaletown areas. 

“Construction’s slower, the trades aren’t necessarily making the margins they would on a simple, 30-storey building where they can just fl y, so you’ve got to make sure you’re in the location that can get the numbers that you need to make it worthwhile,” he said.

Two of Townline’s conversion projects – 1180 Homer, which completed this year, and 540 Beatty, set for to open next year – have had to balance economic demands as well as neighbours’ tolerance for the demanding work the projects require. A new, interior shell was built at 540 Beatty, for example, as part of seismic upgrading.

Continue reading “Home Makeover: Lofts To Love” »

by Bruce McCoubrey
26th May, 2007

Investors are considered to represent 70% of the market for new strata products, according to two prominent Vancouver developers. Even two years ago when CMHC estimated investors made up half the market it raised eyebrows.

“At least 70% of our buyers are investors, not owner-occupiers,” said Scott Pettipiece, sales manager at The Salient Group, which is converting the old Gastown ‘Paris’ Building into lofts that will sell for about $500 a square foot and up.

In a marketing outline for the new 198-suite Dolce tower at Smithe and Richards, by Solterra Development Corp. estimates that investors will account for 70% of buyers, with the rest a mix of first-timers and move-up buyers. (Marketing begins later this month and figure units to start in the $600 per square foot range.)

Bear in mind, that while we have warned the assignment market is flashing some ‘risk’ signals (i.e units that have been sold but not completed), Robin Adamache, CMHC Vancouver analyst, said that, as of the end of March, there was “zero inventory of completed and unsold new condominiums in the downtown core.”

Adamache added that, “in all of Vancouver there are only six new and unsold condominiums on the market and they are all in Marpole.”

You can read the original story here: Bruce McCoubrey’s Market Insight