The historic road names of Cloverdale's town centre will soon make a return, as the City of Surrey carried plans to install heritage road markers throughout the area.
On Monday, March 6, city council agreed with a report recommending the installation of new road markers that display both the current and original names of the roads in the district centre.
The road markers will also designate the centre core of the community as “Historic Cloverdale.”
The new sign for 176 Street, as proposed in the report.
The proposal came from the Cloverdale Business Improvement Association, which submitted the request to the Surrey Heritage Advisory Commission.
Paul Orazietti, the executive director of the Cloverdale BIA, said that the new road signs are part of an attempt to promote the area and protect its heritage.
“In doing that, the city recognizes this is the oldest part of Surrey,” said Orazietti. “Not to suggest everything is old here. But that, like Gastown in Vancouver, that it gets protected as a heritage area.”
In the report, Cloverdale is noted as being Surrey’s first town centre.
Officially established in 1879, it was home to Surrey’s policeman, doctor, jail, hotels, the local creamery and even an opera house. Many of the historic buildings in Cloverdale’s downtown core date from the 1910s, when the area experienced a population boom.
The town centre, located at the intersection of railways and roads, was a major commercial nexus when it first developed. It was not uncommon for Americans to travel from Bellingham and Seattle up to Cloverdale, including during Prohibition, when Cloverdale was home to the closest liquor store to the United States.
Orazietti said he hopes that working to preserve and show off Cloverdale’s history will bring more people into the town centre.
“The whole idea behind this is to kind of say, 'hey, Cloverdale is modern but it's also got it's historic roots.' So in doing all of that, you want to kind of use part of its history to create public art, so then it just makes it a cooler place to come to.”
The streets that would receive new signs are 56A Ave (Robson Ave), 57 Ave (Melrose Ave), 57A Ave (Hawthorne Ave), 58 Ave (Broadway), 58A Ave (Bond Ave), 176 St (Clover Valley Road) and 176A St (King Street).
According to Orazietti, the installation will start near the end of March or the beginning of April.