History · Since 1911
A monument to faith in the future of the city.
The Rogers Building has anchored the corner of Granville and Pender since 1912 — through boom, bust, war, foreclosure, and a hundred years of working life.
The Corner Before
Granville and Pender in the young CPR city.
Vancouver was founded in 1886 as the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and for its first twenty-five years the city grew in the direction the railway pointed. By the end of the century, Granville Street was climbing from the waterfront station into a district of banks, brokers, and shipping offices. The corner of Granville and Pender sat at the financial heart of it — a block from the harbour that paid for everything.
Into that city, in May 1887, stepped a 22-year-old Welsh-speaking contractor’s apprentice named Jonathan Rogers — the first passenger off the first transcontinental train to reach Vancouver. The Vancouver City Band was playing “See, the Conquering Hero Comes!” on the platform. He later admitted, with some embarrassment, that he briefly thought the welcome was for him. In hindsight, it might as well have been.
Rogers went to an early public auction of CPR land and bought four lots in what is now the West End with money inherited from an aunt. He opened a tool and paint shop, worked as a painter, and became one of the busiest contractors of the boom — eventually building an estimated 1,000 feet of commercial frontage, including the St. Francis Hotel, the Buntzen Lake Powerhouse, and four buildings for the Royal Bank.
The Wager of 1911
A $600,000 building in a city spending $1.5 million a month.
When Rogers took out his building permit at the end of May 1911 — listed value $550,000 — Vancouver was in the grip of a building boom, its permits for the year running toward $20 million. He had first engaged the Seattle firm of Gould & Champney to design a more ornate structure known as the Glyn Building, then opted for a more economical design. Construction began within days.
The engineers were Purdy & Henderson of New York — the firm behind the Flatiron Building and the Metropolitan Life Tower. The structural frame, a steel skeleton with poured concrete infill, was complete by 19 February 1912. The Daily Province reported that “at the corner of Pender Street West and Granville Street the Rogers Building is the latest ideas of reinforced concrete construction and the first ten storey of its kind in Canada.”
The finished building cost roughly $600,000 — about $15 million in today’s dollars. It opened with monumental granite columns from Aberdeen, fifteen carloads of Chicago terracotta, Italian marble halls, bronze doors, five elevators, a basement cafeteria, a barbershop, and air washed through falling water. At capacity it held over 1,000 daily occupants and received some 18,000 visitors a day.
“The building will be a monument to Alderman Rogers, whose faith in the future of this city is exemplified in the erection of a building which, when completed, will represent an expenditure of nearly $600,000.”
The BC Saturday Sunset · during construction
The Sutton Years
Fortune, crash, foreclosure, and buyback.
In 1927 Rogers sold the building to Major General Francis Arthur “One-Arm” Sutton for over $1 million — reported at the time as Vancouver’s largest real estate transaction to that date. Sutton — Gallipoli veteran, Siberian gold hunter, armourer to a Chinese warlord — had arrived in Vancouver with a fortune and a plan to open the Peace River country with a railway. He was also, by the building’s own lore, a tenant annoyed that the manager had refused alterations to his offices. He solved the problem by buying the building.
The railway never materialized, and the 1929 crash took the rest. Elisabeth Rogers foreclosed on a second mortgage in 1938, and in 1940 Jonathan Rogers bought his building back. After his death in December 1945 it remained in the estate until 1955, when Elisabeth sold it to the Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation for $1.25 million. In 1976 the Koerner Foundation sold it to Equitable Real Estate Investment Corp. for $2.25 million — the stewards of the building to this day.
The Chain of Hands
Five owners in a century.
From the builder who wagered his fortune to the foundation that stewards it today, the deed has changed hands five times.
- 1912 – 1927
Jonathan Rogers
Builder & first owner
Commissioned and kept the building for fifteen years before selling at the height of the 1920s market.
- 1927 – 1938
Maj. Gen. “One-Arm” Sutton
The adventurer
Bought it for over $1 million — reported as the city’s largest deal to date — then lost his fortune in the 1929 crash.
- 1940 – 1945
Jonathan Rogers
Reacquired
After Elisabeth Rogers foreclosed in 1938, the building returned to Jonathan in 1940 and stayed in his estate at his death.
- 1955 – 1976
Leon & Thea Koerner Foundation
Philanthropic owner
Elisabeth Rogers sold the building to the Koerner Foundation for $1.25 million.
- 1976 – today
Equitable Real Estate Investment Corp.
Steward
Bought for $2.25 million and cared for ever since — modernizing the elevators while conserving the historic fabric.
Then & Now
The same views, a century apart.
Drag each slider to move between the archival photograph and today.
The Full Timeline
A century and a half of the Rogers story.
- 1865Personalities
Jonathan Rogers is born in North Wales
Rogers is born at Plas-Onn, near Llangollen, Denbighshire, and grows up speaking only Welsh. At sixteen he moves to Liverpool, learning English while he works.
- 1887Personalities
The first train, the first passenger
Aged 22, Rogers crosses Canada on the first transcontinental train to reach Vancouver — and is the first passenger to step off, greeted by the Vancouver City Band. At an early CPR land auction he buys four lots in what is now the West End.
- 1902Personalities
A partnership in business and civic life
Elisabeth Rogers becomes Jonathan’s partner in his business and civic ambitions. Jonathan would go on to help found the Vancouver Art Gallery and serve for decades on the Park Board and the Board of Trade.
- 1911Construction
Permit issued; construction begins the next day
The building permit is issued at the end of May 1911 at a listed value of $550,000 — in a city whose building permits were running toward $20 million for the year. Purdy & Henderson of New York, structural engineers of the Flatiron Building, take charge of the work.
- 1912Construction
The Rogers Building opens
The structural frame is complete by 19 February 1912. At roughly $600,000, the finished ten-storey building is celebrated in the press as the first ten-storey reinforced concrete structure of its kind in Canada.
- 1913Vancouver History
Boomtown at full tide
R. Broadbridge photographs the new landmark above Granville Street’s streetcars, its windows painted with tenant names and the basement CAFETERIA sign over the sidewalk. Within a year, the pre-war boom breaks.
- 1927Ownership
Sold to One-Arm Sutton
Rogers sells to Major General Francis Arthur "One-Arm" Sutton for over $1 million — reported at the time as Vancouver’s largest real estate transaction to that date.
- 1938Ownership
Elisabeth forecloses
Sutton’s fortune having vanished in the 1929 crash, Elisabeth Rogers forecloses on a second mortgage — keeping the building within reach of the family.
- 1940Ownership
Rogers buys his building back
Jonathan Rogers reacquires the landmark that bears his name, thirteen years after parting with it.
- 1945Personalities
Death of Jonathan Rogers
Rogers dies on 8 December 1945 and is buried in Mountain View Cemetery. He leaves about $250,000 to civic causes, including $100,000 for a park in Mount Pleasant — dedicated as Jonathan Rogers Park in 1958.
- 1955Ownership
The Koerner Foundation years begin
Elisabeth Rogers sells the building to the Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation for $1.25 million.
- 1976Ownership
Equitable Real Estate becomes steward
The Koerner Foundation sells the Rogers Building to Equitable Real Estate Investment Corp. for $2.25 million. Equitable has owned and managed it ever since.
- 1986Heritage
Class A heritage listing
The Rogers Building is recognized as a Class A heritage building — the top of the City’s former A/B/C evaluation grades — carried onto the Vancouver Heritage Register as among the city’s most significant historic places.
- 2003Heritage
Heritage Award of Merit
The City of Vancouver recognizes the restoration of the exterior lobby and a section of the retail storefront with a Heritage Award of Merit.
- 2020Heritage
The new skyline steps back
In Reliance Properties’ rezoning of 443 Seymour Street, the proposed 29-storey tower is set back 12 feet above its sixth floor — preserving public views of the Rogers Building’s heritage façade.
- 2024Construction
A working building, modernized again
The elevators are modernized and amenities upgraded. More than a century on, the Rogers Building remains a working office building with shops at the street.
Learning Vancouver history through the Rogers Building
The Rogers Building at 470 Granville Street compresses Vancouver’s early history into one corner: the Canadian Pacific Railway that carried Jonathan Rogers west in 1887, the pre-First World War boom that paid for ten storeys of reinforced concrete, the global trade that supplied its granite and terracotta, and the heritage conservation movement that has kept it legible at Granville and Pender for over a century.