The last remaining working dairy in Vancouver is packing up and selling off the farm after more than 100 years at its location.
Business is still going strong for Avalon Dairy, which is concentrating its entire operation in a state-of-the-art Burnaby facility. The dairy run by the Crowley family continues to produce milk in glass bottles as it has done since 1906. But operating the old bottling plant on 1.26 acres of prime residential property in the middle of Canada’s most expensive city for real estate simply doesn’t make sense.
The property is zoned RS-1 residential, comprised of two parcels of land at 2595 E. 43rd and 5805 Wales Street. Colliers International recently listed the parcels without a price, inviting offers instead. The bids are in, and Avalon stops operation at its Wales Street location June 1, and will review the offers on June 3.
“It is valuable property in a residential area,” says Avalon chief executive officer Gay Hahn. “The Crowleys were all born there and raised there, so the family does have some emotional ties there, and that’s why we try to keep [the sale] as low key as we can, because it is upsetting to the family. But we have to look at it in a business sense.”
Without a doubt, the historic dairy farm will be converted to housing.
“I think it was the last remaining piece of farmland in the city other than Southlands,” Heritage Vancouver’s Don Luxton says of Avalon. “The problem is, what do you do when the use becomes redundant?”
Meanwhile, over on the west side of the city, the historic Hollywood Theatre closes its doors soon, and a well-known condo developer is rumoured to be the purchaser. Some would argue that such losses destroy the fabric of the city. There is the worry we will become a city of condos and few jobs, a resort town filled with wine bars and spas. But who can afford to take over a little dairy or movie house in the heart of pricey Vancouver? Not many, especially when housing is such a moneymaker.
Increasingly, there is a battle under way to fend off residential for the sake of keeping both the city’s industry and what’s left of its character.
In 1971, Vancouver had about 2,700 acres of industrial land. About 1,000 acres of that has been converted to mostly residential use, with some let go for parks, walkways, BC Place, Rogers
Mr. Luxton says waterfront land is particularly vulnerable to conversion. After all, who doesn’t want to own a prestigious waterfront view property?
The Olympic Village area was once the site of bustling industry, but 65 acres there have recently been lost to housing. The spruced-up red Salt Building may now seem like the perfect space for a pub, but it was once an actual working salt refining operation that sat on piles on the former shoreline, with raw salt arriving by scow from San Francisco.
More recently, Mayor Gregor Robertson and planning director Brent Toderian announced the official launch of the East Fraserlands, a massive 130-acre, sustainable housing community with 500,000 square feet of office space, schools, retail and 23 acres of park. Council approved the plan in 2006, but for decades the site on the southeast bank of the Fraser had been one of several lumber mills that employed hundreds of people. H.R. MacMillan opened the Canadian White Pine Mill in 1926, and by 2001 new owners Weyerhaeuser USA closed the mill. In 2003, ParkLane developers purchased the site in partnership with Polygon Homes. Wesgroup
