December 1, 2025 – In telephone calls to CFNet on November 20 and 21, Vancouver-Kensington MLA Mable Elmore assured the 175,000 Filipinos in BC that a Filipino Cultural Centre (FCC) could be built potentially at 1940 Main Street in Vancouver.
The project would be coordinatedthrough a partnership of Filipino Legacy Society(FLS) and PortLiving, a real estate development firm.
The FLS and PortLivingplan for a Filipino cultural centre places it in an approximately 30-storey, mixed-use tower with substantial hotel uses within the upper levels and the major community and cultural centre for the Filipino community within the lower levels. The proposal still needs to go through Vancouver’s development processes.
Elmore, the driving force behind this FCC project since she became MLA in 2009, considers Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s support of the project as contributing to the healing of the Filipino community after the traumatic Lapulapu Day tragedy on April 26.
Mayor Sim and Councillor Lenny Zhou have brought forward a motion to expedite the delivery of the planned centre as part of a hotel development.
Addressing concerns over the FCC as supported by Mayor Sim, she offered these explanations:
Elmore on why Mayor Sim supports FLS and PortLiving to develop and coordinate the FCC project
Vancouver-Kensingto MLA Mable Elmore has advocated for a Filipino cultural centre for many yearWhile Mabuhay House Society and FilipinoBC have worked for years to establish aFCC in Vancouver, both still have problems that would take years to resolve. MHShas no concrete plan, and is just starting its feasibility study. FBC has plans and is finishing its feasibility study. It has an agreement with Hungerford, an Indigenous development firm, for land to build on. However, its proposed FCC location needs rezoning, a long process soit will not be “shovel-ready” in the next number of years.
On the other hand, FLS and PortLiving have comprehensive plans that align with the City of Vancouver’s priorities. Its FCC offers language and cooking classes, event and gallery space, and the largest Filipino art collectionoutside the Philippines; a dedicated heritage landmark commemorating and honouring Filipino history and culture; 500 much-needed hotel rooms through two internationally affiliated brands serving both traditional and extended-stay visitors;residential-style hotel suites close to St. Paul’s and Vancouver General Hospitals to support visiting families and long-stay patients; and a privately funded model, with a Letter of Intent in place with an internationally affiliated hotel brand and no anticipated requirement for City funding.
But most important of all, it has land to build it on that needs no rezoning,thus could break ground as early as 2027. Between now and then, FLS would have a year for community consultation on what they want in FCC and how they can make it happen, plus iron out details for fundraising and creation of an endowment fund.
Elmore on Portliving CEO Tobi Reyes
Asked about the community’s concerns regarding the financial and legal troubles of PortLiving CEO Tobi Reyes, Elmore explained that like all private businesses, Reyes suffered losses during the Covid 19 pandemic, but has now recovered and in the process of resolving his legal and financial problem.
According to Elmore, Reyes said he’s confident he can deliver on thisFCC project despite his company’s past financial and legal issues, and the current foreclosure proceedings involving the Main Street property where the cultural centre is proposed will be resolved.
Elmore on concerns about duplication of initiative for FCC
About the concerns of FilipinoBC and Mabuhay House Society regarding the partnership’s lack of transparency and community consultation and its duplication of BC government initiative to establish a Filipino cultural centre in Vancouver, Elmore stressed that there is only one plan for theFCC project that is actively moving through the city’s processes, and it is being advanced by Vancouver Mayor Sim with a motion to Council to promote it. The City of Vancouver has no land nor funds for a FCC, so it supports the FLS/PortLiving group because it has land to build it on.
Elmore further explained that the grant of $250,000 to Mabuhay House Society in 2023 was for organizational capacity building and community engagement, and not for a Filipino cultural centre.
Elmore on the Vancouver-led initiative for FCC
Elmore said that Vancouver Mayor Sim and Councillor Zhou’s motion directs city staff to “prioritize” the review of the proposed Filipino centre project, and explore amending public view-protection policies to enable a building that would be taller than current rulesallow so it would be ”shovel ready” as early as 2027.
Opportunity and Timing issues for FCC
The support for an FCC by the Liberal federal and NDP provincial governments cannot last indefinitely. Both minority governments can be voted out of power through a vote of confidence any time and when they are gone, so is their support for a FCC. Thus building the FCC with the FLS /PortLiving advancing its development is crucial to its becoming a reality soon.
FCC project site
The specific development site for the hotel tower with the community centre is situated at the northeast corner of the intersection of Main Street and East 4th Avenue — a centrally-located area that is expected to see immense change and high-density growth over the coming decades, and vastly improved accessibility from its proximity to SkyTrain’s future Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station and Mount Pleasant Station. This is one of two high-rise, mixed-use hotel towers Reyes is looking to build in this specific area of Mount Pleasant.
On November 26, members of the Filipino community overwhelmingly addressed city council at a meeting to endorse the Sim-Zhou motion.
Following a marathon hearing on that day, Vancouver city council decided to move voting on the motion on December 10.
If everything goes as planned, this FCC project may actually break ground in the near future. Fingers crossed.
Editor of Canadian Filipino Net
Eleonor R. Laquian has written four bestselling books and co-authored four others with her husband, Prod Laquian. Over ten years, she served in various capacities at the University of British Columbia’s Institute of Asian Research: as manager of administration and programs, editor and chair of the publications committee, and primary researcher of its Asian Immigration to Canada project.
She did her BA degree in journalism at Maryknoll College in the Philippines, a master’s degree in public administration at the University of the Philippines, and postgraduate studies at the School of Public Communications at Boston University in the US.
Before immigrating to Canada, she worked with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization, and the UN Information Center. She was a researcher and bureau manager of The New York Times in Beijing, China from 1984 to 1990. She was the first and only Filipino to conduct a nationwide survey of Filipinos in Canada, in 1972, for her master’s thesis at UP. It was published as A Study of Filipino Immigrants in Canada, 1952–1972.
She updated the survey in 2005 for a book, co-authored with her husband Prod: Seeking a Better Life Abroad: A Study of Filipinos in Canada, 1957–2007,published by Anvil Publishing in Manila. She and Prod have visited over a hundred countries for work and pleasure. They immigrated to Canada in 1969.
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