Vancouver’s last wooden ladder factory makes its last wooden ladders

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Norris said Allright was the last factory in Canada making wooden ladders. But it isn’t going out of business — they have another facility in Delta, and have a good business in metal and fibreglass ladders and scaffolds.

But the company has put their factory at 1481 Franklin St. up for sale for $14.99 million, along with adjacent properties at 1364 and 1370 Powell streets that are for sale for $6.39 million and $11.29 million, respectively. That sounds like a lot, but the three properties combined are almost 1.3 acres, which makes it one of the biggest industrial properties close to Downtown Vancouver. But it comes with a big tax bill — $180,852, according to a listing by Avison Young.

“I don’t want to sound negative, but the city likes to talk out of both sides of its face,” said Evans. “They want industry, but the property taxes have gone up by a factor of three in the last number of years. Trying to run a manufacturing business in Vancouver is very difficult.”

The staff at Franklin Street is now working to fill orders from big customers like Telus, which has still been using wooden ladders.

“The best wood in the world to use is Sitka spruce, which we have here,” said Norris. “Hemlock is No. 2. In the past we used to make every ladder out of Sitka. Recently, about 50 per cent were Sitka, 50 per cent were hemlock, depending on what you could find in the marketplace.”

There are stacks of ladders in the factory, a 15,000-square-foot space that looks like something from another age. It is — the western part of the building dates to 1931-32, when it was constructed for Littler & Sons Iron and Brass Works.