WHATS-ON-IN-VANCOUVER-‘MARK BRAND’

Gambling on the ’hood in Gastown

 Even if you’ve been in Vancouver only a short while, you probably know the city’s Downtown Eastside area, often spotlighted in documentaries and news programs to demonstrate some of Canada’s most glaring inner-city problems with crime and drug addiction.

But while others saw this zone primarily as a sociological petri dish of problems, visionary social activist and entrepreneur Mark Brand saw something else: a neighborhood worth saving. And he’s put his money, time and energy where his heart is, most recently in the high-risk renovation of the historic Save-On-Meats building, a project chronicled in “Gastown Gamble” Wednesdays on OWN Canada.

“I moved to Vancouver around 2006, and the Downtown Eastside at that point just fascinated me, strictly from sort of a social aspect,” Brand explains. “It played a large part in my life in the last five years, in terms of where I lived and where I worked. Gastown itself has had this amazing history of highs and lows. There’s not a lot of density as far as people living there, but it has this wonderful feel and history and character. It’s one of the few places in Vancouver that hasn’t been developed heavily.”

But it was the residents of Gastown, not mundane real estate factors, that propelled Brand into tackling the Save-On project, as he calls it. “It’s one of those unique aspects of the neighborhood that inspires you so that you want to work harder,” says Brand, who also owns and operates several other businesses in Gastown. “It’s such an incredible blessing to be able to work there in the Downtown Eastside and then witness good change, if you know what I mean.”

Brand says he envisioned the renovated half-century-old diner and butcher shop as a lynchpin of a broader revitalization dream, a building that would be a tribute yet also something far more basic: a home.

“We wanted to make this space somewhere you could come and eat and frequent with dignity regardless of your station,” he says. “That was the most important thing to me. I wanted to make sure that it was comfortable for all ages and all people from all neighborhoods, essentially. Functionality was important, of course, but I really wanted to make sure it didn’t intimidate people who knew it before but also be inviting to people who never had been there.”

Reaction to news of the project was mixed. “People were actually quite nervous for me, but also what it was going to give to that block,” Brand says. “I think people took a harder look at me in general as a businessperson and wondered what my real motivation was. I had to answer those critics and also proponents of the neighborhood for the entire time we were building, in person. It was a wonderful experience. When you take on a task that you really, truly love, it’s a great thing.”

As Brand and his team were about to start work on the Save-On project, former CTV programming executive Louise Clark approached him about documenting the work in a series by Lark Productions, her new company. Brand agreed, but laid down some strict ground rules. “I said, ‘There can’t be any exploitation. There can’t be any script, and we need to have final say about what is going on if we are going to do this,’ which was very arrogant on my part because them wanting to do this to begin with was very flattering,” he recalls. “But, my major concern stays with the neighborhood and how it is portrayed.” W