The Vancouver Courier has a superb obituary for the Granville Book Company, one of my favourite downtown haunts.

What probably killed the bookstore the most was the money pouring into the area from the Bonnis group to remake it as a nighttime entertainment district. More money came from the city building a residential population in the corridor around Granville Street. All that capital raised the cost of doing business on Granville.

“The reason why the Granville Book Company has closed down was due to substantial increases in property taxes and rents, something which is being experienced by all of downtown and not just Granville Street,” says an email from Hugo Blomfield, a planning assistant for the City of Vancouver.

Cole remembers the words of Gordon Price, a former city councillor and urban planner, a few months before the end. “He said, ‘You know, Bob, it’s really ironic, because after all, you guys have been championing people investing in Granville Mall all these years, when others said no one would ever do it, as long as the pedestrian mall was there. Lo and behold, your landlord does invest in it, and you’re the ones who suffer as a consequence.'”