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B C B U S I N E S S . C A
M A R C H
2 0 24 U n s p l a s h / M a r c o T j o k r o
The central business district might lose
some office workers. But the many resi-
dents, shoppers, tourists, sports and
concert fans and cruise-ship passengers
will remain.
Hotel builders, who are on a roll cur-
rently in Downtown Vancouver, with
almost a dozen projects in the works
from Chinatown to Robson Street, will
add more oomph to the area's gravita-
tional pull.
The downtown district, it appears,
still attracts the young and optimistic.
Salman Zaidi and his brother, Sahan,
carrying on with a family business
from Pakistan, just opened a leather
shop, Zaidi, in Vancouver's downtown.
They saw that there were big brand-
name—and very expensive—stores sell-
ing leather in the city, but nothing like
what they knew they could produce in
stylish jackets and bags. They tried to
get into malls but were told the wait
lists were up to five years. So they
opened on West Pender just a month
before Christmas, sourcing leather
from Italy and Japan, with a workshop
and warehouse in Montreal.
It wasn't easy to get started. "Because
of the rent, it's so expensive here. A lot
of small business owners are afraid to
have a storefront," says 26-year-old
Salman. "And the banks—they don't
want to risk their money with small
businesses."
But they got it open and the response
has been "fantastic," he says—both
from customers and from their neigh-
bours. One business sends them a pizza
every day. Some shoppers have already
become regulars. "It will take some
time to build up the trust," says Salman,
"but we are trying our best." He hopes
that, in the Vancouver of 2050, he and
his brother will still be here, owners of
a long-established city business, help-
ing make Vancouver's downtown an
interesting and friendly place.
