Will rezoning help protect the interior of this Port Moody heritage building?

The heritage character of Port Moody’s first bank could be bolstered if an application to rezone the property is approved by council on Tuesday, Jan. 9.

A development variance permit to rezone 2346 Clarke St. from light industrial use to general commercial was endorsed by council’s city initiatives and planning committee last April. the committee also said the rezoning consideration wouldn't require a public hearing as it aligns with the area's designation in the city's current official community plan.

According to Carola Thompson, a consultant working with the current owners of the building that was built in 1914, the rezoning would help protect some of its heritage components should it be sold to someone who might be inclined to gut the interior to take advantage of the light industrial zoning.

While a covenant protects the old bank’s exterior features, it doesn’t extend to the interior, which still includes the original bank vault, fir floors, mouldings and baseboards, as well as a warren of offices on the second floor that was originally a home for the bank’s manager.

Thompson said many of those features have been lovingly preserved by the current owners and they want to ensure they remain as they look to sell the building.

“Industrial uses and small protected heritage buildings aren’t a good match,” she said.

Since the bank branch was moved to a different location in 1956, the building has been occupied by various commercial tenants, including a Sears outlet shop as well as other small retailers and offices.

A report said the proposed rezoning would entrench such uses, allowing future owners to repurpose the spaces for artists’ studios, a childcare centre, restaurant, offices or shops without compromising its heritage interior.

“Preserving the building is more compatible with retaining the interior of the building with commercial uses than industrial uses,” said the report.

For Denis Wood, protecting the old bank’s heritage interior as well as its exterior is personal. It’s where he spent part of his childhood as his family lived in the upstairs apartment when his dad, Robert, was the branch manager from 1948–56.

He said the bank was a cornerstone of Port Moody’s once-thriving commercial core along Clarke Street. There was a hotel on the opposite corner, a dry goods store next door and a liquor store nearby while the railway tracks in behind the property rumbled constantly with passing freight trains.

“It was a good town to grow up in,” Wood told the Tri-City News.

He said among his dad’s duties every day was ensuring the security of the bank’s two vaults as well as tending to the coal furnace in the basement.

Wood, who now lives on an acreage near Vanderhoof, said he still drives past the old bank whenever he’s in town to visit his own son in Coquitlam.