Type Commercial offices Construction started 1990 | Architectural style Postmodernism Completed 1992 | |
 | ||
Location 161 and 181 Bay Street
Toronto, Ontario Owner Tower I: Oxford Properties
OMERS
Tower II: Brookfield Properties | ||
Brookfield Place (formerly BCE Place) is an office complex in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, comprising the 2.1 ha (5.2-acre) block bounded by Yonge Street, Wellington Street West, Bay Street, and Front Street. The complex contains 242,000 m2 (2,604,866 sq ft) of office space, and consists of two towers, Bay Wellington Tower and TD Canada Trust Tower, linked Allen Lambert Galleria. Brookfield Place is also the home of the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Contents
Design
Bay Wellington Tower is a 49-story office tower, designed by Bregman + Hamann Architects and completed in 1992. The TD Canada Trust Tower is noted for its recessed design and spire on the upper levels and stands at 53 storeys. Designed by Bregman + Hamann Architects and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the tower was completed in 1990 and was known as the Canada Trust Tower until 2000 when Canada Trust was purchased by the Toronto-Dominion Bank. Until July 2015, the "TD" logo was solely displayed on the Canada Trust Tower, unlike the nearby towers of the Toronto-Dominion Centre which were bare.
Although Brookfield Place is a modern office complex, it contains a significant heritage component. In the 19th century, this block was described in the Globe newspaper as "the most valuable business block in the city", although much of it was subsequently destroyed in the 1904 Toronto fire. The fire spared a row of a dozen commercial buildings at the corner of Yonge and Wellington streets, the facades of which were restored decades later and incorporated "in situ" into the Brookfield Place development. The facade of the 1890s-era Merchants' Bank building, originally located on Wellington Street, was similarly restored, although it was moved and incorporated into the Allen Lambert Galleria. The opulent former Bank of Montreal branch at the northwest corner of Yonge and Front streets, built in 1885, also forms part of the complex, and now serves as part of the Hockey Hall of Fame. It contains portraits of all Hall of Fame inductees, and houses a number of hockey trophies, including the Stanley Cup.
Brookfield Place is connected to the underground PATH system and to the subway.
Allen Lambert Galleria
Allen Lambert Galleria, sometimes described as the "crystal cathedral of commerce", is an atrium designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava which connects Bay Street with Sam Pollock Square. The six story high pedestrian thoroughfare is structured by eight freestanding supports on each side of the Galleria, which branch out into parabolic shapes evoking a forest canopy or a tree-lined avenue because of the presence of building facades along the sides of the structure.
The Galleria was the result of an international competition and was incorporated into the development in order to satisfy the City of Toronto's public art requirements. It is a frequently photographed space, and is heavily featured as a backdrop for news reports, as well as TV and film productions.
The parabolic arched roof that Santiago Calatrava created for the assembly hall of the Wohlen High School in Wohlen, Aargau, Switzerland, is generally considered to be a precursor of the vaulted, parabolic ceiling in the Galleria.
Ownership
Brookfield Place serves as the headquarters for Brookfield Office Properties, which owns the Bay Wellington Tower section of the complex. The TD Tower section was owned in entirety by the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) through its subsidiary Oxford Properties. In late 2012 or early 2013, OMERS and an unconfirmed entity identified in news reports as the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP) completed a swap transaction in which OMERS reduced its ownership stake in the tower to 50%. According to the Financial Post, "A spokesman for PSP would not confirm the deal had taken place, noting the pension fund never comments on any transaction." The swap valued the 50% stake in the tower at C$465 million, or C$750 per square foot, a record for commercial property in Canada.
Major tenants
Former: