For years the building at the southwest corner of West Hastings and Hamilton was a branch of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Outside the building hung a plaque (below) in honour of a CPR employee who "in the silent solitude of the primeval forest...drove a wooden stake in the earth and commenced to measure an empty land into the streets of Vancouver."
In the early 2000s developer Michael Audain purchased the building and there was talk that the Belkin Gallery would renovate it and use it as an annex. After sitting empty for a number of years, it was leased to the Vancouver Film School.
Recently the newly re-designed building re-opened as the Charles Chang Innovation Centre. Now located at 308 West Hastings (formerly 300 West Hastings), this six-storey building will feature "four floors (52 rooms) of graduate student rental housing [SFU Beedie School of Business is a partner], a second floor innovation and technology space for teaching and learning, and a ground floor cafe for informal networking among budding entrepreneurs," according to the Globe and Mail.
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