Vancouver city council has taken a step closer to making a new Filipino Cultural Centre a reality. On Wednesday (December 10), council approved a multi-pronged motion co-submitted by Mayor Ken Sim and Coun. Lenny Zhou.
It directs staff to prioritize any application for a proposed Filipino Cultural Centre and hotel project at Main Street and East 3rd Avenue. Moreover, the motion directs staff to report back on progress no later than March 31, 2026. This is so that the application will be forwarded to the earliest available public hearing for council’s consideration.
That’s not all. Council also directed staff to work with Filipino stakeholders, such as the Filipino Legacy Society of Canada, to “identify a suitable City-owned or City-controlled property for use as an interim community space”.
The proposed 60,000-square-foot Filipino Cultural Centre would be part of a mixed-use development. The PortLiving project includes 500 hotel rooms, as well as residential hotel suites. These would be in proximity to the new St. Paul’s Hospital, as well as Vancouver General Hospital.
“The hotel model is innovative and will provide critical operational funds for the Filipino Cultural Centre,” the Filipino Legacy Society of Canada said in a statement. “We are partnered with our developer because of their longstanding vision of building this project as early as 2009.”
The development company is headed by a Filipino Canadian, Tobi Reyes, who has been mired in litigation. This has resulted in the appointment of a court-ordered monitor in connection with other properties.
The Filipino Canadian Legacy Society pointed out that like other firms, this developer was “not immune to COVID-19 disruptions, including delays, restructuring, litigation and financial challenges”.
“The developer has worked to ensure these issues are resolved, and we are confident this will not affect the project’s delivery,” the Filipino Canadian Legacy Society stated.
Filipino BC seeks centre in South Van
Despite this assurance, these legal problems have provided ammunition for opponents of a new Filipino Community Centre at this location.
Before the vote, a group critical of the proposal, Filipino BC, submitted a petition to council asking civic politicians to delay the vote pending a full review by the city’s integrity commissioner.
Last year, Filipino BC selected a non-Filipino Canadian developer, Hungerford Properties, as its partner for establishing a Filipino Cultural Centre near Cambie Street and Southwest Marine Drive. This proposed 90,000 to 100,000 square-foot facility would require rezoning to proceed.
“A community that has endured so much deserves a process rooted in honesty, accountability, and respect—not as an afterthought, but as the foundation,” Filipino BC states on its website.
However, Filipino BC faces its own demands for full financial transparency in connection with fundraising following the Lapu-Lapu Day Festival tragedy on April 26. Huge sums were raised after a motorist drove through a crowd, killing 11 and injuring many more.
Four former Filipino BC directors—Antonio Ortega, Concepcion Colobong, Lina Vargas, and Oscar Bisnar—have called on the organization to “release all financial, governance, and record-keeping documentation related to the collection, allocation, and disbursement of victim-supported funds”.
This includes the disclosure of salaries, stipends, honoraria, reimbursements, and expenses paid from victim-support funds. As well, the former directors are seeking confirmation that “no funds were diverted to unrelated activities, political advocacy, personal benefit, or disproportionate administrative overhead”.
The former directors have not released any documentation indicating or even suggesting that anything illegal has occurred.
Pinoy Festival Alliance joins the fray
There’s a third community organization involved in the debate over a Filipino Cultural Centre. The Pinoy Festival Alliance issued a statement on November 25 rejecting the idea of building a Filipino Cultural Centre within a hotel.
“It must stand on its own and be an inclusive and accessible space,” the alliance stated in a letter signed by the heads of many Filipino Canadian organizations. “It should not be embedded in a commercial establishment or tied to corporate branding.”
Rather, the alliance called on the City of Vancouver to “support efforts to identify a city-owned or city-controlled property that can be made available as a Filipino community space at a nominal lease rate”.
The lead signatory was Paul Clemente, chair of the Pinoy Festival Alliance and husband of Burnaby councillor Maita Santiago. According to Reyfort Media, Clemente wrote a letter to Premier David Eby on November 26 outlining his organization’s plan to convert a site in Burnaby into a Filipino Cultural Centre.
In 2021, the City of Burnaby bought the Firefighters’ Public House at 6515 Bonsor Avenue for $13.3 million.
“This three level building has features that include a banquet hall with a stage, numerous offices, a conference room and large restaurant,” Clemente wrote in his letter to Eby, which was published by Reyfort Media. “It is in a highly accessible transit-friendly location in the heart of both Metro Vancouver and the region’s growing Filipino community.
“We are now finalizing a proposal to the provincial government and the federal government for funding for the purchase of the building.”
Reyfort Media noted that the Pinoy Festival Alliance sent the letter to the premier without disclosing this publicly during the debate over a Filipino Cultural Centre in Vancouver.
The Pinoy Festival Alliance’s desired location for the Filipino Cultural Centre is in Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport Minister Anne Kang’s constituency of Burnaby Central. Kang’s ministry has been leading consultations with the Filipino Canadian community on this issue.
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