Teflon hall: The value of a century-old municipal hall has skyrocketed despite police raid, bad decor

The Township of Chilliwhack’s first municipal hall looks significantly different than it does today. 📷 Photograph courtesy of the Chilliwack Museum and Archives [2015.063.168]

Built more than a century ago by a municipality trying to overcome its mooching past, the Township of Chilliwhack's first municipal hall was a fine structure in its day.

That was a long time ago. Recent years have been unkind to a hall that the township couldn't sell for $7,000 six decades ago. Today, the building is up for sale again. But if you think police raids, nearby murders, iffy decor decisions, and loud trains would make the hall a bargain, well, you don't know the Fraser Valley real estate market.

Two municipalities, zero municipal halls

A municipal hall building seems like an important piece of infrastructure for a municipality. Even a humble township needs a place to house its records, hold meetings, and provide offices for the workers tasked with organizing a community.

And yet, in the year 1910, Chilliwack had two municipalities and precisely zero municipal halls.

And it wasn’t like there hadn’t yet been time. The Township of Chilliwhack had incorporated in the year 1873—more than 30 years earlier—and while it had planned to buy some land and put up a building, it never actually got around to it. Instead, local historian Merlin Bunt writes, “municipal meetings were held wherever there was enough decorum and space for Chilliwhack’s council and citizens to conduct their affairs, including schools, dance halls, houses, and even barns.”

That arrangement lasted for about two decades, until the provincial government built a new courthouse. Like a child moving back in with their parents, the Township of Chilliwhack took up residence in the stately new government building.

(Most of the details in this account come from old newspaper accounts and come via Merlin Bunt and his Chilliwack History Perspectives Facebook page. You can read Bunt’s full account here. He told us there’s not much more he has to say about the old building.)

The arrangement lasted more than a decade, until Chilliwack started to multiply. In 1908, the municipality split in two to resolve a dispute over who would pay for new fire infrastructure. That left two municipalities holding meetings out of the courthouse building. And the provincial government was getting tired of the arrangement. So in 1910, it told Chilliwack and Chilliwhack to find their own homes.

The Township’s plans to build a new structure had floundered for year, with the municipality never quite following through. On the other hand, the city, despite being the younger sibling, sprung into action once the province sent it packing.

Within a couple years, the City had built a new home and moved into the building that now houses the Chilliwack Museum. The Township? Well, like any expert basement-dwelling mooch, the Township also moved into the City’s new headquarters.

The two junior governments were roomies once again.

Finally, in December 1913, came the news on the front page of the Chilliwack Progress: “Township Fathers Meditating Seriously on the Advisability of Building New Home.”

The story explained that while being a tenant of the city was convenient, cheap, and easy, the Township was worried that it may eventually be legally required to have its own municipal hall. Instead of being evicted (again), Chilliwhack figured it might be best just to finally build its own home.

And it did, in incredibly rapid fashion. In January of 1914, the Township bought two lots on Alexander Avenue, just on the edge of the township and south of what is now a large grocery store. In April, it awarded a contract to build the facility. And in July, the building was complete and ready for occupancy. Forty-one years after the Township was created, it had its first city hall.

The building

The building wasn’t just the local Township hall. It housed the school board, two jail cells, and the living quarters of the police chief.

It served its purpose well, and was expanded in 1937.

By the mid-50s, though, Bunt writes that the municipal building had not only again reached capacity, but that taxpayers were also apparently worried they’d fall through the building’s steps as they approached the front doors. So the Township of Chilliwhack bought land for a new municipal hall and put its old hall up for sale for the seemingly reasonable minimum price of $7,500.

There were no takers. Instead, in 1961, the Township off-loaded the aging facility for just $4,150 to a local church.

More than 60 years later, the municipal hall constructed in just a couple months has long outlived the Township of Chilliwhack, which merged back with the city in 1980.

Meanwhile, over the last six decades, the building was home to a catering company, upholstery store, antiques retailer, clothing shop, exercise studio, and carpet roll-end dealer. It also became a hall for a series of organizations, most prominently the Chilliwack German Canadian Club.

In 1991, the property was listed on the City of Chilliwack’s heritage registry. But by the end of the 20th century, the surrounding neighbourhood began to deteriorate, and the building’s age became increasingly evident.

Bunt found a 2006 ad listing the hall for sale for $598,000. Eight years later, the building and neighbourhood were in even rougher shape and the price had dropped: the owner was asking $548,000 for the site and suggesting a buyer may want to tear down the old hall and start over.

That was in 2014. Over the last decade, neither the building nor the neighbourhood has dramatically improved. And yet, buying the old Township hall in 2014 would have been an incredible investment.

In 2018, the hall and its property was sold for $945,000—its value had appreciated by roughly $400,000 in just four years.

In 2019, a prominent local gangster was gunned down on Alexander Avenue barely 80 metres to the west of the building. Two days later, a police emergency response team burst through the doors of Chilliwhack’s old town hall. The following year, in 2020, the property’s value was assessed at $1.2 million, then listed for sale for $1.4 million.

The site’s value has just kept climbing.

In 2022, the property was assessed at $1.8 million. And that figure wasn’t just because of increasing property values. The building itself—which, again, was constructed a century ago in just a few months—was assessed at nearly $700,000.

And now, at the very end of 2023, the hall has once again been listed for sale.

Interior photos show a building—plus a secondary structure in the back—that has seen better years and in which the best decor seems straight from the ‘70s or ‘80s. The main floor of the space has a bizarre colour combination of pitch-black walls and bright-red, extra-wide trim.

The asking price? Just $2.5 million.

Photos below via Realtor.ca