Dominion Public Building | |
---|---|
Former names | Toronto Customs House |
General information | |
Status | Completed |
Architectural style | Beaux-Arts |
Address | 1 Front Street |
Town or city | Toronto, Ontario |
Country | Canada |
Current tenants | Government of Canada |
Construction started | 1926 |
Completed | 1935 |
Owner | Larco Investments |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Thomas W. Fuller James Henry Craig |
Type | government office building |
Built | 1929–1935 |
Original use | Classified Federal Heritage Building, designated September 19, 1983 |
Architect | T.W. Fuller |
Architectural style(s) | Beaux-Arts design with Neo-Classical decoration |
Owner | Public Works and Government Services Canada (before 2017) |
Designated | May 10, 2017 |
The Dominion Public Building is a five-storey Beaux-Arts neoclassical office building built between 1926 and 1935 for the government of Canada at southeast corner of Front and Bay streets in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. [1]
The building was designed by architects Thomas W. Fuller and James Henry Craig and originally served as Toronto's federal customs clearing house for the former Department of National Revenue. It remained a federal property, housing a number of administrative and support functions for the later Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (now the Canada Revenue Agency).
The building's north facade is curved to follow the property line along Front Street east of Bay Street. To the south is CIBC Square, formerly the site of the Union Station Bus Terminal which was previously the CP Express and Freight Building which itself replaced the old Grand Trunk Freight Shed after 1904.
On January 11, 2017, Canada Lands Company announced the pending sale of the property. [2] By March 23, 2017, Larco Investments, owner of Ottawa's Chateau Laurier, had bought the Dominion Public Building. [3]
Larco is adding two mixed use towers and transforming the building into a podium for retail tenants. [4] Canada Revenue Agency is relocating staff to other locations in the GTA (Mississauga, North York (2 locations), Scarborough (Canada Centre Building) and Oshawa). [5]
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Prior to 1920s, the site was occupied by a series wholesale warehouses along Front from Bay to just west of Yonge. These buildings were destroyed by the Great Toronto Fire of 1904. To the east were the City's seventh Customs House and the annex Customs Examination Warehouse which were built in 1876 on the site of the sixth Customs House.
By 1919, the old Customs House was demolished and the stretch along Front laid vacant.
The building was listed as Classified Federal Heritage Building in 1983. [6] This designation stood until the building was sold. In 2015, Public Works and Government Services Canada requested that the City of Toronto's Heritage Preservation Services assess the property to determine whether it was worthy of designation as an individual property under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act. The property was listed under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act as part of the Union Station Heritage Conservation District; because the federal government is not subject to the Act, compliance on their part was voluntary. The Heritage Conservation District designation is confined to the exterior of the building. Designation under Part IV of the Act allows for the protection of cultural heritage value and heritage attributes, including interior features of the building. [7] The City of Toronto designated the Dominion Public building under Part IV of the Act on May 10, 2017. [8]
In 1935–1936, the Dominion Public Building in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was built by Dominion architect Eric Temple. [9]
The Art Deco/Modern Classicism Dominion Public Building at 457 Richmond Street in London, Ontario, was built in 1934–1935 for the Government of Canada as a Post Office by Dominion Chief Architect Thomas W. Fuller and renovated in 2007. [10]
The Modern Classicism Dominion Public Building at 138 Wyndham Street North in Guelph, Ontario was built to house RCMP, Department of Agriculture, and post offices, and its construction contributed to the later demolition of the city's earlier post office and customs house. [11] The building is currently in use by the County of Wellington.
The Dominion Public Building at 45 Main Street East in Hamilton, Ontario, opened in 1935 as a post office replacing an 1880s structure. [12] In 1991, the Hamilton facility at 45 Main Street East was renovated and expanded to become the John Sopinka Courthouse. [13] The building was built by local firm Hutton & Souter rather than by the Dominion architect. [14]
Another building in Toronto, 330 Keele Street, also has the same name and was designed by Craig and Madill in 1935–1936, [15] and is now used by Correctional Service of Canada as Keele Community Correctional Centre, a halfway house.
The Toronto-Dominion Centre, or TD Centre, is an office complex of six skyscrapers in the Financial District of downtown Toronto owned by Cadillac Fairview. It serves as the global headquarters for its anchor tenant, the Toronto-Dominion Bank, and provides office and retail space for many other businesses. The complex consists of six towers and a pavilion covered in bronze-tinted glass and black-painted steel. Approximately 21,000 people work in the complex, making it the largest commercial office complex in Canada.
Downsview is a neighbourhood in the north end of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located in the district of North York. The area takes its name from the Downs View farm established around 1842 near the present-day intersection of Keele Street and Wilson Avenue. It now extends beyond the intersection of Sheppard Avenue and Dufferin Street, though it is popularly seen as including the areas to the north right up to the Toronto city limit at Steeles Avenue. The area includes several large post-World War II subdivisions. Within the area is Downsview Airport, the former site of Canadian Forces Base Downsview, which has since been largely converted following the end of the Cold War into an urban park known as Downsview Park. The airport is still used as a manufacturing and testing facility for Bombardier Aerospace. As of the 2021 census, the Downsview-Roding-CFB neighbourhood was split into the two neighbourhoods of Downsview and Oakdale–Beverley Heights.
Thomas Fuller was an English-born Canadian architect. From 1881 to 1896, he was Chief Dominion Architect for the Government of Canada, during which time he played a role in the design and construction of every major federal building.
St. Lawrence Hall is a meeting hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located at the corner of King Street East and Jarvis Street. It was created to be Toronto's public meeting hall home to public gatherings, concerts, and exhibitions. Its main feature was a thousand-seat amphitheatre. For decades the hall was the centre of Toronto's social life before larger venues took over much of this business. Today the hall continues as a venue for events including weddings, conferences, and art shows.
Metro Hall is a 27-storey Postmodern-style office tower at the corner of Wellington and John Street in the downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It looks out onto Pecaut Square. Part of the three-tower Metro Centre complex, the building was completed in 1992 to house the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto (Metro) and its employees. The building is now used by the City of Toronto following municipal consolidation in 1998.
Brookfield 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 by the Allen Lambert Galleria. Brookfield Place is also the home of the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Trader's Bank Building is a 15-storey, 55.39 m (181.7 ft) early skyscraper, completed in 1906 at 67 Yonge Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The building was designed by Carrère and Hastings, with construction beginning in 1905. It was the tallest building in the British Commonwealth until the Royal Liver Building was completed in 1911. It remains one of Canada's few surviving skyscrapers of the early 20th Century.
Palmerston Boulevard is a residential street located in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, two blocks west of Bathurst Street, between Koreatown and Little Italy. The street is bounded by stone and iron gates both at Bloor Street and College Street. Notably, it is lit with symmetrically placed cast-iron lamps and canopied by mature silver maple trees. The name Palmerston continues south as Palmerston Avenue from College Street to Queen Street.
Roundhouse Park is a 17-acre (6.9 ha) park in the downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is in the former Railway Lands. It features the John Street Roundhouse, a preserved locomotive roundhouse that houses the Toronto Railway Museum, Steam Whistle Brewing, and the Rec Room restaurant and entertainment complex. The park is also home to a collection of trains, the former Canadian Pacific Railway Don Station, and the Roundhouse Park Miniature Railway. The park is bounded by Bremner Boulevard, Lower Simcoe Street, Lake Shore Boulevard West/Gardiner Expressway, and Rees Street.
Enoch Turner Schoolhouse is a historic site and museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a former school owned by the Ontario Heritage Trust. The school was built in 1848 when it was known as the Ward School. The building is located at 106 Trinity Street between King Street East and Eastern Avenue. It is the oldest school standing in the city.
Frederick Henry Herbert (1865–1914) was an architect practicing in Toronto, Ontario, during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Several buildings that he designed have survived into the 21st century and have been registered as significant heritage properties. He was one of the city's best-known practitioners specializing in residential architecture at the close of the 19th century.
The Union Building is an older building in Toronto that has been described as an "architectural gem". When it was built, in 1908, on the Northwest corner of King and Simcoe streets, it was directly across from the palatial official residence of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.
The Birkbeck Building is a four-storey office building in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a National Historic Site of Canada and is protected under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act since 1976 with an Ontario Heritage Trust easement on the property.
Draper Street is a street in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a north-south street located to the west of Spadina Avenue, from Front Street West north to Wellington Street. Draper Street is notable for its collection of 28 nineteenth-century row cottages of the Second Empire style. They were designated by the City of Toronto government in the 1990s to have heritage status. The entire street is designated as a Heritage Conservation District as a way to preserve its heritage for posterity.
Kingsland + Architects Inc. is a Toronto based architectural firm formed by James Henry Craig (1888-1954) and Henry Harrison Madill (1889-1988).
Hutton & Souter is a Canadian architectural firm established in 1920 by William Russell Souter and Gordon Johnston Hutton. Based in Hamilton, Ontario, the firm is responsible for notable structures in the city and elsewhere,. The firm's name was changed to William R. Souter & Associates in 1947 after Hutton's death.
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The Dominion Public Building is an Art Deco office building located on Richmond Street in the heart of London, Ontario, Canada. Construction on the building started in 1935 and concluded with the building's inauguration in September 1936. The Dominion Public building was a result of the Public Works Construction Act of 1934 which laid out a plan to reinvigorate Canada's economy through public works projects. The building was designed by Chief Public Works Architect Thomas W. Fuller with the help of three London architects: John MacLeod Watt, Victor Joseph Blackwell and Roy O. Moore. The building displays a physical essay of "the New Classicalism or Modern Classicalism"; this architectural approach is a take on the Art Deco style of architecture and is what highlights this building as a piece of Canadian Heritage.
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