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Expo 86 BC Pavilion under construction in Jan. ’85. [Photo by Ray Van Eng]

The date was January 1985. I was at the future Expo 86 fairgrounds in Falsecreek Northeast not long after the new year. The site was under heavy construction to erect both temporary and permanent structures in time for the 1986 World’s Fair.

Snow had fallen the night before and the sun was forecast to come up later that morning. As with the fall weather in Vancouver, there was little guarantee that it would actually happen. But I patiently waited. Lo and behold, the sun broke through the fog at around 10:30AM and it was a glorious sight.

So much of Vancouver has changed since then that to be a witness of that transformation at its embryonic stage is a privilege that I personally treasured very much over the years.

Right there before my eyes was the future BC Pavilion with just the skeleton set up. The green glass panels were not installed yet. It was still early days. Expo 86 had about 16 months to go before the gates would be opened to visitors. During the Vancouver’s world fair, this legacy building with the adjacent Plaza of Nations were designated as the BC Pavilion. An international parade of flags stood where they are today. In fact, not much has changed around here for more than two decades.

Today, the structure houses the Edgewater Casino which is operated by Paragon Gaming, a Las Vegas based company. Paragon has plans to build a $450 Million casino, hotel and entertainment complex at a location nearby just west of BC place where currently, a new retractable roof is being installed. The new Paragon development could potentially triple the size of the current gaming facilities at Edgewater. With Edgewater Casino’s license running out in mid-2013, Paragon is very eager to have the new development project approved by the city and get on with the construction as early as possible.

Recently, suspected multi-million dollar money-laundering activities in late 2010 at other BC gambling houses of fortunes such as the Starlight Casino in New Westminster and River Rock Casino in Richmond have once again focused people’s attention on this Paragon gaming development right in the heart of downtown Vancouver.

According to the City of Vancouver web site, the Edgewater Casino now has 65 games tables and 493 slot machines. The new casino could increase that capacity up to 150 games tables and 1500 slots. City staff is currently putting together a report on the casino development and will have a public hearing later, although one such meeting scheduled for Jan. 18, 2011 was cancelled.

For details on the $450 Million casino development, please see –

Site of Paragon’s newly proposed casino/hotel complex at BC Place
Vancouver wants Green in Vegas-style Casino at BC Place
Aerial map
Project information sheet

Expo 86 BC Pavilion, 750 Pacific Boulevard, Vancouver BC

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The city of Vancouver, the BC government and a Las Vegas company are working together to create a casino and hotel complex to help pay off the $563 Million dollars needed to install a retractable roof and some interior work to be done at BC Place.

The proposed mega gambling and entertainment site is located at Yaletown and adjacent to the BC Place stadium. The deal is almost as good as go, although there will be a public hearing later for zoning development. Yet there are some design issues that have to be ironed out.

The city government doesn’t like the initial design that Paragon Gaming had put forth.

Paragon, a Vegas company, owns the Edgewater Casino on the BC Place land and the license for the casino will expire in mid-2013. So Paragon is anxious to move forward with the project in time for Edgewater to movie into. And PacCo, the crown corporation that owns the land and arranged a deal with Paragon, promised to try and expedite the zoning process with the city.

The new casino complex will have three times the casino space for Edgewater to expand into or about 100,000 sq ft. However, any delay by the city would mean a lost of cash for Paragon. And here is Vancouver who wants green too but it ain’t about money.

City planning director Brent Toderian indicated this a great chance for Vancouver to build a ‘green urban casino’. Toderian also cited the new Vancouver Convention Centre (VCC) that housed the international press for the 2010 Olympics as a fine example of what Vancouver is looking for.

The waterfront structure has work spaces in the centre of the building while corridors and hallways circled around the outer edges of the building with floor to ceiling windows providing an unobtrusive harbour view of the great city of Vancouver.

I think the city probably would like it even more if Paragon can come up with some innovative ideas that have environmental values in them. For example, the VCC has a 6-acre living roof with local plants growing on it to mediate the temperature of the building so it can have a cooler summer and warmer winter and it helps in rainwater reuse as well. This together with some other features like an undersea habitat to sustain coral and other ocean lives earned the VCC a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Canada Platinum rating.

The new casino which is scheduled to be finished by mid-2012 will generate $130 Million a year in gambling revenue for the province. The BC Place is actually provincial land managed by PavCo, a crown corporation, so how much influence Vancouver can have in this matter will help decide how green the casino complex will eventually be.

Right now, after the 2010 Olympic Opening and Closing ceremonies, BC Place has one other show this year and that’s the Vancouver International Auto Show which is currently going on until Sunday April 04. Immediately after that, BC Place will close and renovation work will start in May this year to allow the retractable roof to be built.

BC Place will reopen again by mid-2011 in time for the Grey Cup games.

What surprises me the most is the easy acceptance of this casino/two hotel complex proposal in Vancouver. At least there is no public outcry just yet, unlike it had in the mid-1990s when a similar idea named the Seaport Centre was conceived. Perhaps Vancouver had indeed grown up. After the 2010 Olympics exercise that the city and its citizens had endured in the last few years, we realized what the pay-off of an event like that could mean to the city in terms of worldwide approval. Yes, we are now finally a world-class city that welds a certain power which other cities can only envy.

In the past, most Vancouverites focused on the negatives that such a gaming project can bring. Those adverse effects still exist for the critics, but citizens now seem more interested in the benefits and also expressed a quiet acknowledgement that if the city were to continue to prosper, it needs this kind of initiatives. So let’s get on with it instead of voting against it.

If that turns out to be true, I say that’s a welcoming change.