Downtown Victoria’s historic P.L. James Place federal complex at 1230 Government Street is going under the knife.

 

The 67-year-old five-storey “minimalist Moderne” building with classical architectural effects is the local base of operations for a number of federal agencies. Retail operations along its Government Street frontage include an Eddie Bauer clothing store and a footwear retailer.

 

Crews have begun refurbishing the imposing structure’s stone facade and will continue the work well into 2018. The entire restorative process also includes electrical, elevator and mechanical upgrades. 

 

Completed in 1950, Victoria’s Main Post Office and Federal Building was renamed P.L. James Place in the mid-1990’s in honour of Victoria architect Percy Leonard James. James, together with brother Douglas, designed what became the Capital City’s largest post-war architectural undertaking of its time.

 

The building underwent architectural upgrades in 1994 as part of a modernization effort that repurposed its Government Street frontage and gave it its iconic glass awning.

 

The remediation effort is one of several large-scale heritage preservation projects currently underway in downtown Victoria.

 

Along the 1100-block of Pandora Avenue at Cook Street Tenfold Projects is refurbishing the 1950’s-era Medical Arts Building into modern condominiums. And just a stone’s throw from the federal building developer Cielo Properties is readying to remove a 1950’s addition to the historic Customs House building on Wharf and Courtney streets while upgrading and modernizing the original heritage wing built at the turn of the last century. In place of the 1950’s addition a modern seven-storey building will soon rise.

 

And Victoria’s Fairmont Empress Hotel has seen a massive infusion of remediation capital by current owner Nat Bosa. Several years in, the Vancouver-based real-estate developer continues restorative work of the historic hotel’s interior and exterior. C