The Canadian Bank of Commerce
10102 Jasper Avenue
Architects: MacDonald & Magoon w/ Victor D. Horsburgh of Toronto
Constructed: 1928-29
Leading officials and executives of the Canadian Bank of Commerce visited Edmonton on September 6th, 1927 as part of a cross-Dominion tour. Sir Joseph Flavelle, Chairman, and Sir Thomas White, Vice-President, were visibly “impressed with the steady growth of the city.” Before leaving later that night, they announced Edmonton would be getting a new banking hall.
Their new building was to be located at the northwest corner of Jasper Avenue and 101st Street. Its lot was rife with mythic connotations. Reminiscing, the Edmonton Journal explained that the plot “was the first lot offered for sale by the Hudson’s Bay company when it held its first land auction here in 1881.” Its purchaser was John A. McDougall, businessman, city-builder, and future mayor. His company McDougall & Secord, pioneer traders and outfitters, erected a brick building there in 1897 which ultimately became known as the Purvis Block. Although thoroughly outclassed by 1927, it was still “the pride of Edmonton” to old-timers and for good reason. The Purvis Block, as frumpy as it may have been, was Edmonton’s “first big store,” and helped shift the business and retail core from 97th Street to 101st, paving the way for the city’s modern development.
In deference to the site’s history the Bank of Commerce promised a worthy successor. S.H. Logan, the bank’s General Manager explained that “it has been policy of the [bank] in the past to erect in each capital city a main office building worth of the capital city and of the institution.” Describing their vision, the Journal wrote that the “new structure will be built of brick and stone… The main section will be devoted to bank premises with offices on the upper floors and is to be five stories high. North of this will be located three small stores, one storey high, which will be available if needed at a later date for extension of the bank headquarters.” Upon seeing their plans, the Edmonton Bulletin contended it would become “one of the greatest structures on Jasper avenue.”
Before construction could commence deconstruction of the old Purvis Block needed to be undertaken. Beginning on April 2nd, 1928 contractors under the direction of S.H. Muttart worked day and night knocking down the old brick building. Fifteen workmen started as early as 5:00 a.m. until relieved mid-day by a second shift, who worked until 10:00 p.m. “in order to wreck the building as soon as possible,” Muttart explained. By May nothing remained. The H.G. MacDonald Co., Edmonton’s largest builder, then won the tenders for construction. On May 30th the City granted a building permit worth $300,000, and work began in earnest that June. Its concrete frame was complete by August 7th and C.B.o.C. Manager W.G. Lynch remarked that workers were “making good progress.” An official opening was set for July 2nd the following year.
At the time of the bank’s inauguration, the Bulletin — always in a mood the wax poetic — called it “not only one of the finest structures in this city and a valuable asset in the commercial and industrial life of the community, but also one of the most up-to-date and complete banking institutions in the dominion.” “The addition of such a building to the city,” they continued, “will add much to the transaction of business and is yet another tangible evidence of the faith reposed in Edmonton and Alberta by such a substantial and influential institution as the Canadian Bank of Commerce.”
Perhaps their hyperbole was justified — Edmonton’s newest bank did represent a marvel of modern engineering. Included was an example of a Dunham Differential heating plant, “an entirely new departure in Canada” that allowed for thermostatically controlled air conditioning. Two Turnbull passenger elevators, with an ability to rise three-hundred-and-fifty feet a minute, provided speedy service to upper floor offices, while steel and reinforced concrete construction made it entirely fireproof throughout.
The Journal called the building “the last word in architectural design” and it was in more ways than one. Edmonton’s Bank of Commerce is a striking hybrid design and something of a last hurrah for a dying architectural style. Elements of the building point towards the more ornate Edwardian Classical vernacular of years past. Defined by a strict adherence to traditional proportions and themes, these buildings are, according to Maitland, Hucker, and Ricketts in A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles, “grandiose and robustly modelled and have rich surface decoration.” This is evident in Horsburgh, MacDonald, and Magoon’s application of rusticated banding, tuscan columns, decorative balconettes, and projecting keystones and copper cornice.
In other respects, however, the building reflects an early or proto-example of the austere “Stripped” or “Modern” Classical styles that gained popularity during the Depression. These designs grew from “a reaction to the extremely rich [Edwardian Classical] style,” and have details that appear “flattened or linearized, as though the building’s facade were reduced to a line drawing.” The bank’s east ground-level facade, with its plain columns, the modestly adorned second-through-fourth floors, and simplified quoins evoke this growing trend.
Inside, its banking hall, “One of the most highly furnished and finished… in western Canada,” featured a revolving door, terrazzo and battleship linoleum floors inlaid with marble, stained walnut walls and counters with brass teller cages, decorative ionic columns, a coffered ceiling, plaster mouldings, and a wall of polished safety deposit boxes all “entirely open to the view of the banking public.”
While their name may have been plastered all over the building, the Bank of Commerce occupied only its ground floor and basement. Its upper four storeys were subleased to other businesses and organizations like the London Life Assurance Company, the solicitors of Friedman & Lieberman and Parlee, Freeman & Howson, and the First Church of Christ’s receiving room. The Commerce Drug Company, W.A. Ferguson Jewellers — the “official timekeepers of the C.N.R.” — and Martha’s Silk Store occupied its northern storefronts.
The Bank of Commerce’s 1962 merger with the Imperial Bank spelt trouble for their building. As part of the amalgamation, all major office and financial responsibilities transferred to the Imperial Bank’s comparatively newer building and the Commerce’s aging structure was relegated to branch status. With their competitors building new office towers around them, the emboldened bank considered replacing their older building in 1963. Regional Manager B.E. Langdeldt — a Calgarian — said he was “making a strong recommendation to head office that the present building be replaced by a new structure.” Fortunately, as local writer Jac MacDonald quipped, “conservative banking economics prevailed” and they instead pursued a course of interior modernization.
But the pressures of redevelopment were persistent. In the late 1980s another round of demolition threats came, this time uttered by Olympia & York. The company, which had struck a deal to redevelop the site for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, had grand plans to build a sprawling, half-block-long project containing a retail mall and two office towers. Standing in their way was that old Tyndall stone bank on the corner.
What could’ve been: Olympia & York’s Commerce Place — then known as CityCentre — development as originally pitched to City Council. The vestigial facade of the old C.I.B.C. can be seen at the lower left.
Edmonton Journal, November 22nd, 1988.
City Council granted approval in part due to the initial renderings and models presented by O&Y, which clearly depicted the C.I.B.C.’s two principal facades incorporated as part of the second tower’s podium. It was a bait-and-switch. When new revisions went forward to Council again in January 1989, those historic walls were nowhere to be seen. Aldermen lambasted O&Y for the changes as representatives sheepishly tried to say that “there were never any representations made that the facade would be saved.” Then-Mayor Terry Cavanaugh and soon-to-be-mayor Jan Reimer both agreed that their inclusion would become a “bargaining point” for any new approvals.
A revision came that March. “We have come up with a solution that is pretty slick, I think, and the bank likes it too,” O&Y Senior Vice-President Roz Tighe said. But again, it wasn’t what was promised. As Lori Stewart opined:
“Olympia and York… originally proposed that significant parts of the CIBC building be incorporated into the new city centre development. For that proposal, Olympia and York was granted %5.4 million worth of development concessions by the city.
Now, because of ‘tremendous engineering problems in figuring out how to do it,’ the developer proposes to display sections of the facade inside a modern building.”
Indeed, the company’s “slick plan” was to relegate the sixty-year old building to nothing more than a vestigial art exhibit inside the second tower's atrium. Alan Kellogg, a Journal staff writer, lambasted the move:
SHAME! — is how SPARE, the Society for the Preservation of Architectural Resources in Edmonton describes the shady deal by Olympia & York/the Canadian Imperial bank of Commerce and the city regarding the historic CIBC building on Jasper and 100 [sic] Street. As usual, the group is correct in its outrage at the scam, which will essentially tear down the building, the last of its type on Jasper Ave. We should remember that the owner-developer team on this has received $5.6 million in city concessions already, for the noble purpose of trashing another piece of our history for another unprintable glass box.”
Kellogg’s college Frank Hutton, the Journal’s ever conservative business writer, had less sympathy:
“Let’s face it! Incorporating the walls of that old building into a modern office tower would cost the developers at least $2.5 million more than razing the old structure and starting from scratch. And don’t forget the CIBC, which actually owns the building, isn’t ecstatic about retaining any part of the place.”
The first phase of CityCentre, including the mall and one tower, opened in 1990. Thankfully for preservationists that was all that opened. Their new tower only damaged an already glutted market, while the development’s mall had its opening twice delayed due to a lack of prospective tenants. Facing an uphill battle with preservationists, a new mayor battling against businesses tax concessions, a sluggish economy, their largest tenant — the Provincial government — threatening to pull out, and $20 billion in crippling debt, O&Y canceled the second tower in 1991, saving the old C.I.B.C.
O&Y eventually collapsed under their financial burden, and, in an odd twist of fate, it was the C.I.B.C. who acquired the title to the failed company’s Edmonton development. The bank, left high-and-dry without their desired replacement, instead, in time, committed to a full restoration of the nearly seventy-decade old block. Writing for the Journal, Kelly Cryderman explained:
“Crews spent the past month [May 1999] scrubbing the outside of the walls and have faced a few loose bricks…
But the building itself will look a lot like it has for decades. The Manitoba Tyndall stone on the outside will remain, and new bricks will be taken from the same quarry as they were 70 years ago.
And high on the west side of the old CIBC building, you can just barely see the faded lettering for the Canadian Bank of Commerce — a bank that no longer exists… According to the sketches, the old sign will remain.”
Inside, what few historical details survived, including ionic columns, a coffered ceiling, and plaster mouldings, were repaired and repainted, while its upper four floors, abandoned since 1995, underwent renovations to “consolidate banking services.” In-addition, a new two storey annex linked the bank to Commerce Place — renamed by the C.I.B.C. from CityCentre in 1993. Lisa Grewar, senior project manager, said that “the extension is an important part of the project as it links people to the pedways and LRT.”
Standing tall nearly a century later, the old Canadian Bank of Commerce Building represents one of only four pre-Second World War banking halls that survives in Edmonton. It's the last still used for its original purpose.
Sources:
“Begin Work On Bank Building Early In 1928,” Edmonton Journal, September 7, 1927.
“Site of Purvis Block Was Bought For $50 By John A. M’Dougall,” Edmonton Journal, April 7, 1928.
“Large Building Program for City in 1928,” Edmonton Bulletin, March 19, 1928.
“Wreckers to Start Soon on Purvis Block,” Edmonton Journal, March 26, 1928.
“Bank Permit Swells City’s Building List,” Edmonton Journal, May 30, 1928.
“Make Good Progress,” Edmonton Journal, August 7, 1928.
“Much Wealth Is Added To Edmonton’s Real Estate,” Edmonton Bulletin, June 29, 1929.
“New $400,000 Building Is Opened in Edmonton by Bank of Commerce,” Edmonton Journal, June 29, 1929.
“New Imperial Bank Building Considered,” Edmonton Journal, June 27, 1963.
“Third New Bank Building May Be Built At Corner,” Edmonton Journal, October 18, 1963.
“Decision on Bank Awaited,” Edmonton Journal, January 7, 1964.
“Imperial Bank ‘Cleaned Out’,” Edmonton Journal, October 29, 1964.
Lynda Shorten, “Council Wants bank Facade Saved,” Edmonton Journal, January 5, 1989.
John Geiger, “City Can’t Bank on Assumptions,” Edmonton Journal, January 7, 1989.
Jac MacDonald, “Part of Bank Facade Preserved in Olympia and York Proposal,” Edmonton Journal, March 31, 1989.
Lori Stewart, “Edwardian building Must Be Conserved,” Edmonton Journal, May 9, 1989.
Alan Kellogg, “Film Show Enriching,” Edmonton Journal, May 21, 1989.
John Geiger, “Pitch For Facade Has Hollow Ring,” Edmonton Journal, August 12, 1989.
Berry Westgate, “Aldermen Should Hang Tough on Preserving Buildings,” Edmonton Journal, August 14, 1989.
Frank Hutton, “Politicians Show Little Sense When it Comes To Dollars And Cents,” Edmonton Journal, September 15, 1989.
Robert White, “Historical Group Wants Bank Saved,” Edmonton Journal, December 9, 1990.
Duncan Thorne, “Gov’t May Ship Some Staff Out of CityCentre Tower, Isley Says,” Edmonton Journal, February 20, 1991.
“Banks, Olympia & York At Odds Over $450M Loan,” Edmonton Journal, April 1, 1992.
Kelly Cryderman, “Bank Landmark Will Enter A New Age With Scrubbed Face, Modern Interior,” Edmonton Journal, May 19, 1999.
Jac MacDonald, Historic Edmonton: An Architectural and Pictorial Guide (Edmonton: Lone Tree Publishing, 1987), 58, 59.
Leslie Maitland, Jacqueline Hucker, Shannon Rickets, A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 1993), 124, 132.
Lawrence Herzog, “75 Years on an Historic Intersection”, Real Estate Weekly vol. 22, no. 25, June 24, 2004.
Dorothy Field, Historical Walking Tours of Downtown Edmonton: Explore Our Past (City of Edmonton Sustainable Development and Alberta Culture and Tourism: Edmonton, AB, 2015), 44.
