Sam Kee Building, Commercial building in Chinatown, Vancouver, Canada

The Sam Kee Building stands at 8 West Pender Street and measures roughly 1.5 meters wide at ground level, while the upper floor extends to nearly 1.8 meters. Beneath the adjacent sidewalk runs an underground area that provides extra usable space and complements the narrow footprint above.

Chang Toy had the building erected in 1913 after the city reduced his original lot of roughly nine meters to less than two meters in order to widen the street. Rather than giving up, he developed a design that uses every available centimeter and extends both upward and below ground.

The building's Chinese name, 三記號大樓, refers to the Sam Kee Company (三記), the import-export firm of Chang Toy that bought the lot in 1903. The ground floor now houses Jack Chow Insurance, which bought the property in 1985; the storefront signs read "Vancouver" in red and green. The basement once held public baths.

The building sits at a busy intersection in the historic Chinatown district and is easy to explore on foot during a walk through the neighborhood. Stepping close to the facade allows visitors to appreciate the narrow proportions best and gain a clear sense of its unusual construction.

The building's basement extends 10 feet under the Pender Street sidewalk, and the city long charged annual encroachment fees for that space and for the overhanging bay windows. Jack Chow Insurance refused to pay and applied for a waiver, citing the building's heritage status; council waived the CA$2,500 basement fee in November 1998 and the CA$260 window fee that December, which Rod Chow called the end of an "85-year feud".