First Canadian Place

First Canadian Place
Information
Location	100 King Street West Toronto, Ontario Canada
Status	Complete
Constructed	1975
Use	Office
Height
Antenna/Spire	355 m (1,165 ft)
Roof	296 m (971 ft)
Top floor	289.9 m (951 ft)
Technical details
Floor count	72
Floor area	250,849 m2 (2,700,000 ft2)
Elevator count	29
Companies
Architect	Bregman + Hamann Architects (Design Consultant: Edward Durell Stone & Associates)

First Canadian Place is a skyscraper in the financial district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, at the northwest corner of King and Bay streets, and is home to the Toronto headquarters of the Bank of Montreal. At 298 metres, or 978 feet (355 metres with antenna included), it is Canada's tallest skyscraper and the eleventh tallest building in North America. It is the third tallest free-standing structure in Canada, after CN Tower, also in Toronto, and the Inco Superstack in Sudbury, Ontario.

History and architecture

First Canadian Place under construction in 1975.

First Canadian Place is named for Canada's first bank, the Bank of Montreal. Designed by Bregman + Hamann Architects with Edward Durell Stone as design consultant, First Canadian Place was constructed in 1975 (originally named First Bank Building), on the site of the Old Toronto Star Building. The site was the last of corners of King and Bay to be redeveloped in the 1960s and 1970s, and a major bidding war began over the property. The then little known firm of Olympia and York eventually obtained nearly the whole city block, though the election of reformist mayor David Crombie led to new rules banning skyscrapers and it took three years of lobbying before permission for First Canadian Place was granted. When completed, the building was nearly identical in appearance to Stone's Aon Center in Chicago, Illinois;^[1] completed two years previous as the Standard Oil Building, the Chicago tower is of the same floor plan and clad in the same marble,^[2] the only overtly visible difference being the vertical orientation of the windows, as opposed to the horizontal run of those on First Canadian Place.

First Canadian Place was the 8th tallest building in the world to structural top (currently 44th) and the tallest building overall outside of Chicago and New York. It was also the tallest building in the Commonwealth of Nations until the completion of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1998. The Bank of Montreal "M-bar" logo at the top of the building was the highest sign in the world from 1975 until overtaken by the sign atop CITIC Plaza in 1997. The roof is still the location of a number of antennas used for radio and television broadcasting. The structure contains 29 elevators, and is one of only a few buildings in the world that uses the double-decked variety, and is connected to the underground PATH system.

Cladding

The same white Carrara marble as used on the Aon Center is employed as an exterior cladding and interior finish for First Canadian Place, with six hundred tons of the material on each floor. Foreshadowing what would take place with First Canadian Place in 2007, one of the marble slabs of the Aon Centre (then the Standard Oil Building) detached in 1974, falling and penetrating the roof of a neighbouring building, resulting in an eventual recladding of the entire Aon Center in white granite between 1992 and 1994. This problem would surface at First Canadian Place as well, as, during an intense storm on the evening of 15 May 2007, a 1 metre by 1.2 metres, 140 kg (300 pound), piece of white marble paneling fell from the 60th storey of the tower's southern face onto the 3rd floor mezzanine roof below, causing authorities to close surrounding streets as a precaution.^[3][4] In late 2009, it was announced that, Brookfield Properties, the owners of First Canadian Place would follow the example of the Aon Center and replace, over the course of three years, the tower's 45,000 marble panels with new ones in glass, those on the main expanses with a white ceramic frit and the corners in a bronze tint, while the building podium retains its marble cladding.^[5][6]

Broadcasting

The following Toronto-area broadcasters have their transmitters atop First Canadian Place:^[7]:

FM stations

• CKLN-FM 88.1
• CIRV-FM 88.9
• CIUT-FM 89.5
• CJBC-FM 90.3 (Radio-Canada Espace Musique)
• CKIS-FM 92.5 (Kiss 92.5)
• CFXJ-FM 93.5 (Flow 93.5)
• CJKX-FM 95.9 (KX96) +
• CFMZ-FM 96.3 (Classical 96)
• CBLA-FM 99.1 (CBC Radio One)
• CJSA-FM 101.3 (CMR Diversity FM)
• CFNY-FM 102.1 (102.1 The Edge) #
• CKAV-FM 106.5 (Aboriginal Voices Radio)
• CILQ-FM 107.1 (Q107) #

# backup transmitter; main transmitter on CN Tower
+ synchronous transmitter; provides supplementary coverage to primary transmitter in Ajax

TV stations

• Sun TV (UHF channel 52)
• OMNI.2 (UHF channel 69)

See also

• List of tallest buildings in Toronto

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: First Canadian Place

• Official Site
• Emporis Site

Coordinates: 43°38′55″N 79°22′54″W / 43.64861°N 79.38167°W / 43.64861; -79.38167