History at Woodward's
Goldcorp Centre for the Arts (GCA) is located where the historical Woodward’s department store once was.
The Woodward's department store closed down (due to bankruptcy) in 1993 and the site sold to developers who planned to develop it. Those plans, however, never came to fruition and development of the site was put in limbo. The site was then sold off to the province of BC, with the building itself staying vacant for nearly a decade.
In 2003, the city of Vancouver, led by City Council member Jim Green, bought the site from the province and with public consultation, ultimately commited to the current design.
This building (and current site) was completed in 2010, with SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts (SCA) moving into the building in January of that year. One of the first shows in the history of this building was Robert Lepage’s “The Blue Dragon”.
Today, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts is the home for:
- Goldcorp Centre for the Arts Production and Event Services
- SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts
- SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement
- The Audain Gallery
Now, more than 10 years after the building first opened its doors, the building holds more than 200 events annually and has become a mainstay for cultural and community programming in Vancouver.