Corner store, E. Broadway & Carolina, Vancouver, 1991

A Century on the Corner: The History of the Faber Block

Look closely at the southwest corner of East Broadway and Carolina Street today, and you will see a striking harmony of old and new. While the modern 6-story Faber Block stands as a fresh addition to Mount Pleasant, its entire footprint is anchored by two of the neighborhood’s oldest surviving heritage structures: The Carolina Building and The Connacher Residence.

The Era of the Black & White Grocery

Over the decades, the ground floor of The Carolina served as a vital community anchor, first as the Carolina Confectionery and later as the Black & White Grocery.

When I photographed this corner in 1991*, the scene perfectly captured that classic, layered East Van character: the popular grocery storefront operating side-by-side with the historic Connacher House nestled directly to its west. Decades later, it was the photograph at the top of this webpage that caught the eye of the present development team. Intrigued by this slice of Mount Pleasant history, they reached out to order prints—a connection that directly linked the corner’s deep commercial past to its current chapter.

1895: The Connacher Residence Arrives First

Long before commercial storefronts lined East Broadway, the corner was entirely residential. In 1895, a retired contractor named Robert Connacher constructed a classic, 2.5-story Victorian home right on the corner lot (originally numbered 574 East Broadway). Featuring a full-width front verandah, lathe-turned porch columns, and decorative scalloped cedar shingles, it housed working-class families as Mount Pleasant rapidly expanded.

1926: The “Great House Shuffle” & The Birth of The Carolina

By 1920, the bustling streetcar line on East Broadway had turned the corridor into a prime commercial zone. Machinist Alex Videck purchased the property, operating a rear machine shop along Carolina Street. In 1926, seeing the immense value in retail frontage, Videck pulled off an incredible feat: he physically shuffled the 1895 Connacher House one lot to the west to clear the corner lot.

On that newly vacant corner, he erected The Carolina (2525 Carolina Street), a mixed-use commercial and apartment building. To save on material costs, Videck utilized a fascinating architectural deception: he used real brick cladding strictly for the lower half of the Broadway storefront, but used drop wood siding cut and painted to flawlessly mimic individual bricks on the upper levels and the entire Carolina Street facade. Videck moved into the upper apartment, living there until his death in 1969.

Present Day: The Faber Block Revitalization

Designed by Formosis (formerly Studio B Architects) and officially designated as a protected city heritage site by-law in 2019, the property has been completely reimagined as the modern Faber Block.

The project triggered a second house shuffle: the 1895 Connacher House was carefully picked up once more, moved to the rear of the lot, rotated to face Carolina Street, and fully restored into a character-retaining rental dwelling known as the “Art House.”

Meanwhile, the original 1926 Carolina building was structurally retrofitted with dramatic double-height ceilings to activate the street level. In a statement regarding the project, the development team at Kiri Properties noted that the goal was to “encapsulate a commitment to enhance character while remaining sensitive to the history of the neighbourhood.” By combining a respect for heritage with a drive toward preserving places for creativity, the beautifully restored corner space enters its newest chapter as home to ¿Cómo? Ultramar—a live-fire, Northern Spanish seafood concept—bringing the historic storefront back to life for a new generation of Mount Pleasant residents.

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*To be honest, I can’t recall the exact month I made this photo, having neglected to date the negative sleeve. The scattered leaves tempt me to consider late 1990, even though the negs and contact sheet sit in my archive between other work from early 1991. Could I have mixed them up? Perhaps this rainy day was in November, the usual “weather widow” Vancouver opens to gales like this. Regardless, before my then-girlfriend and I took the plunge and moved into a condo a block from St. Catherines, in the spring of 1990, she owned a late-Victorian house 4 blocks away from the Black & White Grocery, at 13th & Carolina.