The Lum Sam Building holds significant value as part of the historic structures defining Victoria's Chinatown's southern boundary. Originally facing the Johnson Street Ravine, which served as a physical and cultural divide between the European business area and Chinatown, this block on Pandora Avenue witnessed the transformation from wooden shacks to brick commercial blocks in the early 1880s. These buildings housed Chinese businesses, meeting the growing needs of the Chinese population with shops like laundries, grocery stores, medicinal shops, and restaurants, often owned by European pioneers. Street façades formed a continuous wall, enclosing interior spaces, while narrow alleyways connected buildings to central courtyards, which housed tenements, opium dens, theatres and gambling houses. This configuration reflects a traditional urban pattern from southern China. The Lum Sam Building exemplifies this duality, featuring an Italianate commercial façade with arched windows, stringcourses and a decorative cornice.