The Salient Group

New housing helps homeless women
Theresa McManus
The Record
Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Women and children who are at risk of homelessness will soon have a new home in New Westminster.

The Salient Group, which owns the historic Trapp Block on Columbia Street, is making space available to the Atira Women’s Resource Society. The group will provide housing to women and children who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, with priority being given to women and children who are homeless in New Westminster.

“In a nutshell, we did not see that there would be a market for the new project for a little while. We thought it was a real shame to see the units in the Holbrook Block sitting vacant,” said Salient president Robert Fung. “When we bought the building, those rooms were vacant. To have them sit there further, when there is a need, didn’t seem to make any sense.”

Salient’s project would incorporate the Holbrook Block at 660 Columbia St. and the Trapp Block at 668 Columbia St. Atira will make use of 27 rooms in the Holbrook Block that were formerly used for housing.
Fung, a member of the Streetohome Foundation’s housing committee in Vancouver, mentioned the empty space to fellow committee member and Atira executive director Janice Abbott.

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“If you build it, they will come”
Developer sees Columbia as one of the great city centre streets in the Lower Mainland

Theresa McManus
The Record
Saturday, April 26, 2008

Columbia Street is on its way to reliving its glory days.

Robert Fung, president of the Salient Group, is working on plans to restore the façades of the historic Trapp Block and the Windjammer Hotel and to build a new tower behind those buildings. He believes in the “if you build it, they will come” adage.

“It’s a great street,” he said. “It has always been a great street. It’s like every great street that was the original city centre.”

Many of those streets are undergoing a resurgence, Fung said, because they have so much innate historical, cultural and social values.

“New Westminster has the greatest historical downtown in the Lower Mainland apart from Gastown,” he said. “Gastown has a condensed inventory of historical buildings. For the most part they have been maintained fairly well.”

Fung is well acquainted with the historical buildings of Gastown, having done several projects in that area. He said his approach hasn’t been to do a “plop and run” development but to contribute to the area’s economic energy.

“We are creating a critical mass and creating an energy that will influence investment,” he said. “I see potential for others. This one project has a critical mass.”

Fung said the proposed project in New Westminster is roughly the same buildable area as a three-phased project his company is doing on Water Street in Gastown.

Continue reading “The Record: Trapp Block: “If You Build It, They Will Come”” »