Vancouver’s Nonprofits Were Getting Priced Out—This Building Changed That

Mara Mennicken wanted to secure affordable office and warehouse space—which is not an easy task in this city.

The CEO of the Good Chocolatier was ready to move her operation out of her home, but she had some specific requirements. The place needed lots of storage (to house her delicious chocolate products); it needed to have zero windows (in order to keep the chocolate at the right temperature with strong air conditioning); and it needed to be the right price (the Good Chocolatier is a social enterprise that employs people on the autism spectrum, so their margins are tight). Mennicken had toured a bunch of offices, and nothing was a fit. Then she found 312 Main.

“What I loved about it was that it was not, ‘Here’s the office space; here’s what’s available,’” she says of her initial site tour. “It was more a conversation both ways. They really wanted to see what our business was about, and if we would fit into the space and its community.”

Ensuring the right fit is a key part of how 312 Main operates. The building—located right in the heart of the Downtown Eastside at Main and Cordova—provides low-cost, flexible office space for both organizations and individuals. The through line among all of its tenants is a commitment to social equity and grassroots change, be it Megaphone magazine (which publishes writers with lived or living experience with poverty in the DTES) for or La Boussole (which offers French-language support for vulnerable populations of French speakers in B.C.).

“There is a desperate need for affordable and suitable office and meeting space for nonprofit organizations,” says Sean Condon, director of social and economic innovation at the Vancity Community Foundation, which manages 312 Main (the building itself is owned by the City of Vancouver). “When we talk about the affordability crisis in Vancouver, we’re not always reflecting on the fact that social service organizations are also getting priced out.”

The initial idea to operate the property as a community hub came from the Jim Green Foundation, which partnered with the Vancity Community Foundation to open 312 Main in the summer of 2018. “There was a real movement around social-purpose real estate, and saying Vancouver needs some of these kinds of shared spaces that help support startups or nonprofit organizations by making space more affordable, but also by allowing for that space for important collaboration and community connection,” says Condon.

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The building breaks down barriers to workspace access by making the individual options themselves cheaper (a private desk can go for as little as $350 per month), and by offering flexible short-term licence agreements to those who need them. There are traditional offices, co-working hot desks and artist studios, as well as bookable event spaces for workshops and big meetings. Vancity Community Foundation also organizes its own events throughout the month, which helps foster collaboration and belonging among tenants.

It’s a radical transformation for a building that used to be the headquarters of the Vancouver Police Department. The interior was completely renovated before the team reopened its doors (the exterior, meanwhile, had to remain intact because it’s a heritage building). Sure, there’s still some classic cop concrete, but there’s also a cheerful, welcoming air in the space thanks to large windows, white walls, natural light and warm wood tones.

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“We’ve had comments from members who remember being hauled up to the third or fourth floor, where the holding cells were,” says Sean Miles, director of Binners’ Project, an organization that destigmatizes and legitimizes people who collect bottles and cans for money and that operates out of 312 Main. “But they’ve really done, I think, about as good a job as you could do to try to make this feel like its own space and not be tied to the history of the building.”

Still, Condon acknowledges that 312 Main hasn’t completely shed its past associations.

“There have been folks who have struggled to come into this space because of what it was, and that’s something that we take very, very seriously,” he says. “We have to continue to work to build that trust and show the community that we are working to find solutions that will help support this community.”

While there’s still some distance to go, the general feeling inside 312 Main is a positive one. It’s incredible what happens when vastly different people come together, united under a shared sense of purpose.

“There are so many different groups that work in this space, but it is constantly filled with joy and good feelings, because there’s some underlying care and values that many of these groups seek to focus on—and I think that really is so unique about a space like this,” says Miles. “I don’t think there’s another space like it.”