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Another Steveston landmark bites the dust

Steveston Marine & Hardware will be lost to development after serving the Village for 77 years
Alan Campbell
Steveston Marine
Steveston Marine & Hardware co-owner Iqbal Ladha will close the Steveston location at the end of the summer. In its place is potentially a new commercial building on the ground floor, supported by five condos above. Alan Campbell photo

Another landmark business and building in Steveston will be lost in the next few weeks.

Steveston Marine & Hardware’s Moncton Street location will close its doors at the end of the summer.

The 77-year-old store is one of the village’s iconic, historic buildings, with its elaborate artwork on its outside wall.

Steveston Marine – which has three other successful outlets in Richmond, Vancouver and Langley – has been struggling in the village for many years, due, in part, to the decline of the fishing industry.

Rezoning and heritage alteration permit applications are posted on the aforementioned wall, indicating the intention to demolish the building with commercial space at ground level and five condos above.

Iqbal Ladha, co-owner of Steveston Marine & Hardware, sold the building two years ago to a developer and knew this day was coming.

“I could see the writing on the wall for a while,” said a saddened Ladha, who took over the Steveston staple in 1984, before expanding to the other three locations a few years later.

“The village used to be a commercial hub for the fishing industry. Now most of it has gone; there are few, if any, (sockeye salmon) openings for the fishermen these days.

“It’s essentially a tourist town now. Customers are now coming in to buy a few things as a memory; one of them said he used to come in here as a six-year-old with his grandfather.

“There are just too many big stores opening up, as well. It’s tough to compete.”

Steveston marine
Steveston Marine & Hardware co-owner Iqbal Ladha will close the Steveston location at the end of the summer. In its place is potentially a new commercial building on the ground floor, supported by five condos above. Alan Campbell photo

Ladha, who has lived in Steveston since he bought the business in 1984, said whatever stock he can’t sell by the end of August will be moved to the company’s other Richmond store, near Bridgeport Road, next to the middle arm of the Fraser River.

He recalled how it was originally a general store, called Steveston Hardware, owned by two brothers, who Ladha thinks were “either Austrian or German, I’m not sure.”

“In 1974, it was bought by Weston Marine, who inserted “Marine” into the store name and it became a fishing supply store also,” added Ladha, who immigrated to Vancouver from Tanzania in 1974.

“In 1984, the company went into receivership and we took it over. Then we opened the Vancouver store in 1986 at Coal Harbour; we’ve moved around Vancouver a little bit, we’re now at West 5th. We opened Langley in 1988.”

However, Ladha hasn’t totally closed his mind to the possibility of the business returning to its roots in the future, with a couple of offers floating around the village.

“(The City of Richmond) were supposed to open up a marina here, but it didn’t happen, that would have helped,” lamented Ladha.

“The (Steveston) harbour authority contacted me last week, talking about federal funding for a commercial marine complex, but I can’t wait around for that.

“And Onni contacted me again last night, talking about going into one of their units at Imperial Landing. But it’s too late.

“That’s not to say we can’t come back down the line, though. Who knows?”

Ladha told the Richmond News three years ago, before he decided to sell the building, how he was thinking of relocating elsewhere in Steveston and turning the store into a micro-brewery or small winery, both with tasting rooms.