Paula Simons: Downtown's landmark Bank of Montreal building could soon be history
The old BMO building (left) is now vacant. The BMO main branch is now in the Enbridge Building, right next door. ED KAISER /POSTMEDIA
Since 1984, the striking Bank of Montreal building on Rice-Howard Way has been a downtown Edmonton landmark.
With its huge walls of glass windows, the granite-clad six-storey building stood out from the highrises around it. If you were walking by, you could see right in. And if you were inside the BMO, with its high-vaulted ceiling and its natural daylight, you didn’t feel as though you were in some dark, stuffy old bank.
Today, the once-proud building sits empty. The bank, its anchor tenant, moved out Oct. 6. Just two weeks later, on Oct. 20, the building’s new owners applied for a demolition permit.
The permit hasn’t been granted yet. But the city planning office says there’s no reason to turn down the application.
It’s quite a come down — literally — for a building that was meant, back in 1984, to be a symbol of downtown Edmonton’s modernity and renewal.
The BMO itself hasn’t gone far. It’s moved next door into new digs on the first two floors of the Enbridge Building.
BMO branch manager Gladys Balcarce says their Enbridge space, which has its grand opening Nov. 16, has allowed them to consolidate retail banking services in a “state-of-the-art” building.
But while it’s great to see a solid main floor tenant for the Enbridge Tower, the bank’s move left its old glass box without a purpose.
Back in April, the site — four city lots, valued by the city for tax purposes at $17.1 million — was sold to new owners: Rakesh and Raj Dhunna, the father-son team who run Regency Developments.
The Dhunnas are best-known for their ambitious super-highrise developments, including the 36-storey Pearl at 119 Street and Jasper Avenue, and the 45-storey Emerald, planned for Jasper and 114 Street.
Raj Dhunna says the company has plenty of projects on the go. But when the bank site became available, they didn’t want to miss the chance to snap up a premier property.
“We went into it without a real vision. We just knew it was a great parcel, a great corner in our city.”
Their original plan was to find tenants, lease the space out for the next five years, and wait for the current glut of downtown office space to be absorbed. But Regency applied for a demolition permit earlier than planned, he says, because the Valley Line LRT is planned to run right past the property, and they want to be sure they can demolish the bank building before LRT construction begins in earnest.
“We could just hold the site. Or we could do it Regency-style, and be aggressive.”
