Vancouver’s Uptown Village has been attracting attention as an up-and-coming, hip place to hang out. But complementary and alternative health care providers have been onto the trend for some time.
From McLoughlin to Fourth Plain boulevards on Main, Broadway and “C” streets, there are more than 20 practices offering services from aromatherapy and naturopathy to massage and hypnotherapy – double the number of restaurants in the same area.
Complementary and alternative providers offer diverse medical and health care systems, practices and products that are not presently considered part of conventional medicine. Complementary medicine is used together with conventional medicine, and alternative medicine is used in place of it.
Uptown Village’s good access, relatively low lease rates and messy vitality seem to be a prime environment for such practitioners.
Three providers explain why.
Availability of parking is a big draw
Journey to Health
2400 Broadway St.
Cynthia Bye, naturopathic physician
Unlike many traditional medical practitioners, complementary and alternative health care providers generally see fewer than 10 patients a day, so their livelihood is contingent on keeping a low overhead.
Uptown, with its progressive vitality and availability of small spaces, allows practitioners to rent a room or a floor in a house, not 6,000 square feet, said Bye, who calls the neighborhood the next Pearl District.
In August, after three years of looking, she and real estate investor Kim Vine bought a two-building, 5,831-square-foot office complex and named it Broadway Natural Health. The women paid $865,000 for it, and Bye moved her practice there from 315 E. Evergreen.
Including her, there are now five practitioners in the building, including a hypnotherapist, another naturopathic physician specializing in pediatrics, a massage therapist and a chiropractor, occupying 1,800 square feet.
Their rent ranges from $400 to $600 per month, per room.
The adjoining 4,000-square-foot office space is empty, and while Bye eventually envisions it filled with alternative and complementary health care practices, she’d be happy with any professional services at this point.
The transitioning neighborhood is eclectic, vibrant and open to different ideas about health care, Bye said.
The field has seen a boom as patients have become more proactive about their health.
“People want more from their health care providers than seven to 10 minutes,” she said. “And as we get more high-density housing here, high-income, progressive people will come move in who want complementary medicine,” she said.
As an investor, another major draw for Bye was the availability of parking – nearly impossible to find in any downtown setting, she said.
On Main and Broadway streets from McLoughlin to Fourth Plain boulevards, Vancouver’s normal requirement of one off-street parking space per 200 square feet of development doesn’t apply.
“The intention is to preserve the character that’s developed there over time,” said Chad Eiken, the city’s planning review manager.
Even in the case of a remodel, unless the original floor area is not exceeded by 25 percent, the area is exempt.
“This is a unique thing,” Bye said. “You couldn’t have an MD down here because they have too much volume. Even though we need one.”
A healthy interconnectedness
An Shen Wellness Clinic
1906 Broadway St.
Caroline Derrickson, Chinese medicine practitioner
When Derrickson started her practice in the mid-1990s, there were four acupuncturists in Vancouver, she said.
She’s practiced out of several buildings in Uptown, and has seen it bloom into a hub for like-minded practitioners.
“I’m attracted to the lifestyle, the character of the neighborhood,” Derrickson said. “I see large trees, old houses with windows that open, fresh air, no traffic congestion – it’s healthy. Alternative health care professionals have an orientation toward that kind of health.”
Derrickson said she’s turned off by East Vancouver.
“Besides the huge, oversized stores, there’s absolutely no soul,” she said. “No energy, no rootedness. Developers just came out and wiped out all the trees and landscaping with no preservation of the energy that was there.”
Derrickson leases 900 square feet, and her landlords share the converted house.
The presence of similar businesses in close proximity doesn’t have much impact on the wellness center in terms of competition, she said.
At this point in her career, most of her business comes through word of mouth.
But the interconnectedness of the volume of complementary and alternative practitioners and the neighborhood is undeniable.
“It adds an identity to the Uptown Village,” she said. “It’s not the whole identity, but it’s a unique aspect.
“Chinese medicine teaches that everything is interdependent. The neighborhood benefits, as well as the businesses.”
A less institutional setting
Inner Rhythms Healing Arts
2200 Broadway St.
Eric Donaldson, reflexologist, massage therapist
Deanna Ramage, aromatherapist, reiki master, Celtic reiki master, reflexologist
Donaldson and Ramage moved their practice from the Hough neighborhood to Uptown Village two years ago because of the concentration of similar clinics.
“We thought we’d apply the fast food chains’ idea – people get used to a given area having a given service,” Donaldson said. “It’s good to have a centralized area.”
After moving into the 500-square-foot space they lease for $650 monthly, they saw a 30-percent increase in business.
The growth in business came as a result of being easier to find and being a better fit in the neighborhood, Ramage said.
“If feels as if there is a health care community growing here,” she said.
And unlike many traditional medical practitioners who are looking to squeeze into Salmon Creek to be close to the hospital, Donaldson said he actively avoided the area, where lease rates are higher.
“We’re literally a mom-and-pop shop,” he said.
Class A medical office space can lease for $24 per square foot triple net monthly, said Doug Bartocci of NAI Norris, Beggs and Simpson in Vancouver.
“I don’t think alternative medical providers can afford or have a need to be by a hospital,” he said. “They’re looking for lower rent in smaller places where they can still be relatively close in and easy to find – and you have that in (the Uptown Village) area.”
Because most of the buildings are older in the neighborhood, and many homes have been converted from residential to commercial uses, practitioners may be renting from less institutional landlords.
The practice has found a sense of camaraderie in the neighborhood, and established the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Assoc. of Southwest Washington – a brand-new, network of support and education for the region’s alternative and complementary health care workers.
Ramage estimates there are a couple thousand such practitioners in Southwest Washington.
“There are lots of us out there and we’re kind of out there on our own,” she said.
But there isn’t a sense of competition, Donaldson said.
“There are plenty of sore people,” he said. “As people get used to all of us being down here, they will start thinking of us more and more.”
Megan Patrick can be reached at mpatrick@vbjusa.com.
