More than 90 local artists could soon be looking for a new place to work after Victoria council approved plans to turn a downtown arts hub into a hotel.
The building at 780 Blanshard Street, near Burdett Avenue, is currently home to one of Victoria’s largest visual arts communities.
The Vancouver Island Visual Arts Society, known as VIVAS, says more than 90 artists currently work out of the building, along with four galleries and five non-profit arts organizations.
The building is now set for a major change.
On October 1st, Victoria council unanimously supported plans from Reliance Properties to restore the historic building and convert it into a five-storey hotel. The latest plans call for roughly 124 hotel rooms, a public café and rooftop terraces.
The building itself will not be demolished; instead, the former BC Power Commission building will be restored, upgraded for earthquakes and topped with an additional storey.
For the artists currently working there, the redevelopment means they will eventually have to leave.
VIVAS executive director Logan Ford has previously said the organization expects to be displaced when the hotel conversion begins and has been searching for another location large enough to accommodate the artists.
VIVAS was created in 2022 in response to the shortage of affordable studio space in the region. The organization says the studios are offered at deeply discounted rates compared with regular commercial space.
The society also operates a second location at 1101 Yates Street, known as The Hourglass, but that space is much smaller. It currently provides about 20 additional affordable studios.
Across both locations, VIVAS says it operates more than 45,000 square feet of studio space serving more than 120 local artists. Its studios are currently full and there is a waitlist for space.
The redevelopment of 780 Blanshard has been in the works for several years. An earlier proposal called for a much larger 20-storey development with a hotel and nearly 100 condos above the existing building.
That plan was later scaled back and the version approved this month keeps the original four-storey building and adds only one new level, creating a five-storey hotel.
The change also means another piece of the building’s history could disappear.
A large biodiversity mural painted on the building in 1994 by Victoria artist Rick Thomas is not expected to be retained as part of the redevelopment.
For now, artists remain inside the building, and this weekend, the public will have a chance to see some of the work being created there.
VIVAS is hosting an art crawl from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, October 10th, giving people access to artists and galleries at both 780 Blanshard Street and 1101 Yates Street.
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