Three moves in a decade: Repeated renovations hinder business at Canada’s Four Corners

“My dear Star, we are at 183 Sparks Street,” Reza Ghaffari says into the phone as he leans against a rustic hardwood cashier’s desk. “Yes, 183 Sparks Street, one and a half blocks west from where we were before.” Ghaffari has gotten used to these kinds of calls over the past decade. He’s had to […]

“My dear Star, we are at 183 Sparks Street,” Reza Ghaffari says into the phone as he leans against a rustic hardwood cashier’s desk. “Yes, 183 Sparks Street, one and a half blocks west from where we were before.” Ghaffari has gotten used to these kinds of calls over the past decade. He’s had to move his well-known gifts and artwork boutique, Canada’s Four Corners, three times since 2015, much to the confusion of frequent customers like Star. But he listens to her as intently as ever, happy to guide the longtime family friend to the store’s new location. It only takes a few minutes for Star to find Canada’s Four Corners. She talks casually with Ghaffari until another customer approaches the cash with two glass Inuksuit, when Star bids Ghaffari farewell. “Is the move permanent?” the customer asks in French. Ghaffari wraps the Inuksuit in tissue paper and lays them gently in a box. “No,” he eventually answers with a shake of the head. But he doesn’t know when the store will be moving back to its home at 93 Sparks St.

A history of relocations and renovations

Canada’s Four Corners has been selling unique Indigenous and Canadian crafts on Sparks Street to tourists and locals alike since the early 1960s. Founder John Clarence Cook, a former opera soloist and pilot for the RCMP, established the store in 1968 at what he hoped would be its permanent home at 93 Sparks St., taking over a space built around a century earlier and previously inhabited by the Montreal Telegraph Company. The Parks Canada website describes the “Canada’s Four Corners Building,” located at Sparks and Metcalfe streets, as a highly embellished Second Empire building built of roughly dressed stone and contrasting smooth stone finishes. It says the building is associated with the commercial development of Sparks Street in the early 20th century.  “This area has been, since the 1880s, the core of Ottawa’s central business district,” reads a description on the website. “The Montreal Telegraph building, as it was then known, was first a rental property. Its first tenant was the Merchants’ Bank of Canada. Both companies were part of the financial empire of the prominent Montreal entrepreneur, Hugh Allen.” The federal government expropriated 93 Sparks St. to create more parliamentary office space in 1973, then recognized the property as a federal heritage building in 1986. Ten years later, in 1996, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) spent six months merging the interior with the neighbouring Marshall Building.  Still, Canada’s Four Corners stayed put.  Then, in 2015, RMA+SH Architects replaced the roof and windows and improved the structure and envelope of the exterior wall. It was that renovation that forced Ghaffari to move down the block until he was able to return to 93 Sparks St. in March 2021.  “Especially for a business that has been in one location for such a long time, the impact (of moving) has not been a positive one,” Ghaffari says. “Most customers have to try to find where you are.”

Ghaffari relocated the store again in October of this year, this time to 183 Sparks St., when he was forced out of 93 Sparks St. by PSPC’s Block 2 redevelopment project. Block 2 is immediately south of Parliament and bounded by Metcalfe, Wellington, O’Connor and Sparks streets. Ghaffari says the project likely started because several adjacent Block 2 buildings had been condemned over the years due to structural issues.  “They’ve been sitting empty for years,” he says. PSPC media relations officer Nicole Allen says the Block 2 project will “rehabilitate and modernize the buildings” in Block 2 and “integrate the Canada’s Four Corners building within the overall design of the complex.” Allen says the government has had regular consultations with local businesses and other stakeholders. She adds that PSPC anticipates finishing Block 2 construction by the early 2030s, but wouldn’t say when displaced businesses could move back in.  When asked about this timeline, Ghaffari said he was not aware of the government’s projected completion date. “I’m presuming that a regular construction project is a four- to five-year project. Early ‘30s is more,” Ghaffari says. “What can I say? The construction ends when the construction ends. We’re just adjusting to the new location.” PSPC says displaced Block 2 tenants will be given priority to move back in after construction is finished, but their rent may be higher.  “Lease agreements for these spaces will reflect market conditions at the time of completion,” PSPC says.

Between the moves in 2021 and 2024, Ghaffari also faced issues familiar to many downtown Ottawa businesses. Lockdowns and travel restrictions during the pandemic limited tourism, which cut off a significant part of his customer base. Then came the “Freedom Convoy” at the start of 2022. “I was in a store within the heart of the protest. Even when it ended, it took weeks for (the government) to remove the fences they built around our perimeter. We were the last perimeter to reopen because we’re literally one block from Parliament Hill,” he recalls. At the same time, shifts in the market are impacting Ghaffari’s ability to source Indigenous art. For about 25 years, Canada’s Four Corners has bought art from the Nunavut Development Corporation (NDC). The NDC supports Inuit communities in Nunavut by purchasing crafts such as soapstone carvings and reselling them to retailers and art galleries across the country. Yusun Ha, NDC’s general manager of sales, says there aren’t enough young, full-time artists to replace the master carvers who are now getting to retirement age. “Before the pandemic, there was already a generational shift happening,” Ha says. “It’s very multifaceted. Either people don’t have the resources, or don’t want to put in the resources, to acquire skills to become a master carver. But, in general, people can’t afford to be artists.” Ha says longstanding clients of NDC such as Canada’s Four Corners are crucial because they offer accessible representation of Inuit artists. But limited supply is impacting how much the NDC can send to retailers and art galleries. “If (these retailers) can’t provide to the clientele they have now, I think it’s going to have a trickling impact. A lot of them are amazingly hanging on and they’re also adapting,” she says.  Ghaffari is planning to revamp and update his online storefront to accommodate the shift to remote and hybrid work. But despite all the changes and challenges, Ghaffari strives to maintain strong in-person relationships with clients, an ideal on which Canada’s Four Corners was founded. “Personal connection and personal service are very important, especially in a world of remote work, where people do not physically come to a retail operation as much,” Ghaffari says. “Things have modified, but we’re (still) trying to protect and promote Canadian art.”