Type Office Roof 121 m (397 ft) Height 121 m Opened 1928 Construction started 1927 | Completed 1928 Floor count 22 Floors 22 Floor area 3 ha | |
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Alternative names Tour de la Banque Royale Similar Bank of Montreal Head Offi, New York Life Insurance, Le Port‑Royal Apartments, Telus Tower, 500 Place D'Armes | ||
'The Royal Bank Tower is a skyscraper at 360 Saint-Jacques Street in Montreal, Quebec. The 22-storey 121 m (397 ft) neo-classical tower was designed by the firm of York and Sawyer. Upon completion in 1928, it was the tallest building in the entire British Empire, the tallest structure in all of Canada and the first building in the city that was taller than Montréal's Notre-Dame Basilica built nearly a century before.
In 1907 the Royal Bank of Canada moved its head office from Halifax to Montreal. As the building in Saint-Jacques Street turned out to be too small, in 1926 the board of directors of the biggest bank in Canada hired New York architects York and Sawyer to build a prestigious new building a short distance westward on Saint-Jacques Street. Between 1920 and 1926 the bank had bought up all the property between Saint-Jacques, Saint-Pierre, Notre-Dame and Dollard Streets to demolish all the buildings there including the old Mechanics' Institute and the ten-storey Bank of Ottawa building in order to make space for the new 22-storey building.
In 1962, the Royal Bank moved its main office to another famous Montreal building, Place Ville-Marie, however kept a branch in the impressive main hall of the old building, situated in Old Montreal. That branch relocated to the nearby Tour de la Bourse in July 2012 [1].