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50 years ago Vancouver’s Main Street was bustling; the city’s plans hope to recapture those days
A long-awaited $21 million, two-year project to overhaul Main Street in downtown Vancouver is expected to begin this fall.
It took 30 years to get to this point. The city began planning for reconstruction of Main Street from Fifth to 15th streets in 1993, but budget constraints led to false starts.
Efforts to revitalize downtown date back even further with the “Study Plan” in 1961, “Operation Facelift” in 1966 and “Project Go” in 1971. Today, Vancouver’s new waterfront has stolen the spotlight. Downtown boosters, however, hold out hope that the energy will spread to Main Street, given its storied history.
Michael Walker, executive director of Vancouver’s Downtown Association, said he’s encouraged that federal funds are pushing the so-called Main Street Promise project forward. The “promise” in its name refers to it being in the works for 30-some years and attempted three times, most recently in 2008, when the Great Recession halted the project (although it got far enough to change Main Street from one-way to two-way traffic).