China Overseas Chinese Network, April 27. According to a comprehensive report by Canada's "Sing Tao Daily", "Chinatown Plaza" is located at No. 180, Qihua Street. It consists of a 7-story parking lot and a 3-story commercial building. .

Wu Peixiong, president of the Vancouver Chinatown Business Promotion Association, said the building is almost vacant, and there are 18 stores in the plaza, but only five are actually used.

"Chinatown Plaza" was built in the early 1990s, he said, and later large shopping malls of Asia were built in Richmond and Burnaby, attracting shoppers to slowly leave Chinatown.

  Wu Peixiong said that in 2021, the building and land will be appraised by the government at more than 14.7 million yuan. The parking lot on Qihua Street and Quebec Street will be valued at 6.1 million yuan by the government, but the government has done much to these properties with high valuations. few.

"Their mission is to maximize the value of Vancouver real estate and our income," he said.

  Zhen Ruiqian, director of urban projects at Simon Fraser University (SFU), said it was a huge waste of quality public real estate, which he believed could be repositioned as public welfare real estate.

  Wu Peixiong hopes to turn Chinatown Plaza into a culinary food center, with food stalls, a market and an Asian cooking school on the top floor of the parking lot, where diners can enjoy the city views while tasting students' cooking creations.

He sees it as a reimagining of how to take advantage of such a good place.

He submitted an initial proposal to the city on how to transform Chinatown Plaza in May 2020.

  The City of Vancouver said it had commissioned a study to investigate potential options for improving Chinatown's business mix, but Wu said the city won't give the Chinatown Business Council the final report.

  Zhen Ruiqian said that some cities around the world have established sample culinary food centers, including the Swan Market in Oakland, California, and the La Corsina Municipal Market in San Francisco, both of which are co-created with the community and represent inclusiveness. and innovation.

  Louwella Malda of Filipino Noodles United says food always attracts traffic.

She recently moved to Vancouver from Toronto and opened her diner in early April in the same plaza where Fu Da Seafood Restaurant, Vancouver's largest Chinese restaurant, is located.

  The City of Vancouver did not comment on whether it would be involved in the creation of the future culinary food center, but in a statement the city attributed the vacancy to the pandemic, saying the pre-pandemic Chinatown Plaza vacancy rate was only 6 per cent, compared to the current vacancy rate. The rate is 28% of leasable area, with the majority of vacancies occurring in the past two years.

  Ms. Liang, the owner of Chinatown Plaza Optical Shop, said that the city government still increased rents for Chinatown Plaza tenants during the epidemic, which was unreasonable.

"There's nothing wrong with charging rent at market rates, but the problem is that it doesn't provide a normal market," she said. "It's okay to increase rent when the market is booming, but the city can't maintain a good image of Chinatown. It's not clean and it's not safe. , people are afraid to come to Chinatown when they hear it, and the parking fee is expensive, the mall is not attractive, and people don't think the parking fee is worth it, so they won't come."