Two historic houses behind the legislature buildings are being trucked and barged this week to new locations on Dallas Road, where they will be restored as single-family homes.
The houses are being relocated from the 6.2-acre Capital Park development site, bordered by Michigan, Menzies and Superior streets in James Bay, to the 200-block of Dallas Road at Dock Street, where they will be fixed up and put on the market in the spring.
They are now off the ground, balanced on huge wheels, ready to be moved.
Plans call for Nickel Brothers house movers to truck the houses today along Government Street to the foot of the parking lot on Store Street next to the Janion Hotel project, where they will be moved onto a barge. On Wednesday, Harken Towing is set to tow the barge to Ogden Point, where the houses will be offloaded and trucked to their new location.
Jawl Properties of Victoria and Concert Properties of Vancouver are partners in the massive Capital Park project to build a mixed-use development including offices, residential and retail uses, and a public plaza. The developers purchased the property from the province in 2014 for $34 million. The first offices are expected to be ready in 2017.
The two houses being moved are among five historic homes, all used for non-residential purposes, on that property. The other three will be clustered on the east side of Capital Park and renovated to create a total of 13 residential rental units by this fall, said Karen Jawl of Jawl Properties.
If the houses had been moved through James Bay by truck alone, it would have meant moving utility lines, extensive tree pruning and inconvenience to residents, she said.
It was logistically simpler and required less tree trimming to move the houses by barge, she said.
Nickel Brothers is building temporary ramps to load the houses on and off the barge, Jawl said. “We have a very tight window to move them during the king tide,” she said. A king tide is an especially high tide. “There is also a lot of co-ordination with utility providers and the city to prepare the route.”
The developers are not revealing the cost of the move.
It is expected that the two houses, now on the City of Victoria’s heritage registry, will receive heritage designation, Jawl said. Designation brings a higher level of protection for a heritage property.
The 524 Michigan St. house is destined for 226 Dallas Rd. The two-storey, wood-frame Italianate house has a front gabled roof. It was built about 1892 and originally located on Superior Street, where it was owned by tailor William Stewart. It was moved in 1910 after Charles Beaven bought it at an auction held on the home’s front steps. He initially rented it out and later lived in it until his death in 1926.
The 526 Michigan St. house, a 1911 Edwardian-style house with an open verandah supported by Doric columns, will be moved to 222 Dallas Rd.
Mary Ellen Macabe, daughter of Charles Beaven, originally owned the house, which was used as a boarding house in the mid-1910s.
Jawl said the two houses are structurally in good shape, although the exteriors are “tired and ready for rehabilitation.”
“They were built with first-growth timber and now that the interiors [are] stripped out, you can see just how beautiful the original wood and craftsmanship is.”
Exterior character-defining elements will be saved and rehabilitated, including the original windows, she said.
“There was very little original material remaining on the interiors, so they have been taken back to the studs and will be completely refinished.”
Estimated schedule:
• Today, at 12:01 a.m., trucks carrying the two-storey houses are scheduled to slowly drive to the barge site on Store Street. This trip should take two to three hours.
• The trucks will roll down Government Street past the Fairmont Empress Hotel. They will turn left onto Wharf Street to head along Store Street, then continue to the barge site through the parking lot next to the Janion Hotel condominium project.
• Between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m., the houses will be moved via ramps onto a barge, which will be towed into the harbour, where it will remain for about 24 hours.
• On Wednesday, likely around 5 a.m. to 7 a.m., the barge will be towed out of Victoria Harbour and around Clover Point. Plans call for it to arrive at Dallas Road by 8 a.m. Towing time is estimated at about two hours.
• Between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Wednesday, the houses will be unloaded from the barge, again via ramps, and taken to the 200-block of Dallas Road.
