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"NEWS photo Aci! Lucente

HILLEPINE PRESIDENT Corazon Aquino (left) delivers a specch to B.C. business leaders at the Vancouver Board of Trade at the Pan Pacific
*Hotel Saturday. Aquino came ¢o Canada on a four-day visit io sign an extradition treaty with Ottawa and to promote Canadian investment in her §
country Pictured to the right of Aquino i is the | Hon. Raul Menglapus, Philippine Foreign Secretary, and Capilano-Howe Sound MP ‘Mary Collins. :

THE WALLS of the 83-year-old Olympic Hotel came
tumbling down Monday to make way for a 15-storey resi-

dential development on its 140 East Second St. site.

Though a demolition permit was
issued Sept. 19 to Fama Holdings
Ltd., the company developing the
hotel site, the actual demolition of
the Olympic was delayed to allow
removal of asbestos from the
building.

Fama vice-president: of devel-
opment Andrew Mar said Tuesday
the amount of asbestos that had to
be removed ‘*was minimal.”*

But, because of the health risks
assouated with airborne asbestos,
regulations governing the removal
of the substance are extremely str-
ingent.

Built in) 1906, the three-storey
Olympic officially closed Sept. 1.

Ics demolition follows the
removal in March of the 77-vear-
old St. Alice Hotel, a block to the
west of the Olympic at 120 West
Second St.

A 28-storcey tuxury highrise is
currently being constructed on the
former St. Alice site.

While Fama will develop the sity
on which the Glympic Hotel build-
ing stood, the Intercon Group will
develop the hotel’s former parking
fot, which fronts on Third Street
immediately to the north of the
Olynipic.

Intercon, which originally pur-
chased b:-th sites, had planned to
construc: # 100-foot high residen-
tial-commercial building on the
parking lot site, but North Van-
couver City recently adopted a
bylaw that reduced the allowable
height for development on the site
to 75.5 feet.

The parkiny lot originally con-
sisted of four, 50-foot wide lots,
two of which had no height restric-
tion, while the other two restricted
the height of development to 35
feet.

Development of the entire site
therefore required rezoning of all
four lots. The subsequent 75.:
foot restriction is consistent with
the city’s Official Community
Plan.

Jim Wyse,

intercon president,

said Tuesday the company is cur-
rently redesigning its development
to conform to the new height
restriction.

The hotel building site, also
made up of four lots, had no at
tached height limit. But when a
building application was made for
its redevelopment, rth Van-
couver City Council was consider-
ing a bylaws restricting building
heights in) most areas of Lower
Lonsdale to six storeys.

That bylaw was adopted in Ov-
tober.

But the 150-foot height for the
new building on the Olympic hotel
site has also been approved.

The Olympic opened in 1906 as
the 100-reom Palace Hotel and, at
the time, was advertised a5 the on-
Jy hore in BoC. with a roof-top

garden.

It underwent a major overhaul
in 1948 and subsequently became
known as the Olympic Athletic
Club.

Because of the many renovations
and additions made to the original
hotel, the Olympic was listed in
North Vancouver City’s heritaze
inventory as a supplemental build-
ing and, as such, not of prime
heritage importance.

Bill, Baker, North Vancouver's
museum director and archivist,
said there was little of historical
value salvaged from the Olympic
for the city’s archives prior to its
demolition, “tbut it was a really
nice hotel when we arrived in 1938,
we had the whole top baleony and
there was no other buildings
obstructing the view.”