CIBC Tower (french: La Tour CIBC) is a 45-

storey A storey (British English) or story (American English) is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the word are ''storeys'' (UK) and ''stories'' (US). T ...

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

. With the communications antenna on the roof, the total height is . The International Style office tower was built by

Peter Dickinson Peter Malcolm de Brissac Dickinson OBE FRSL (16 December 1927 – 16 December 2015) was an English author and poet, best known for children's books and detective stories. Dickinson won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association ...

, with associate architects Ross, Fish, Duschenes and Barrett, and was the city's tallest building from 1962 to 1963. The building holds offices for the

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC; french: Banque canadienne impériale de commerce) is a Canadian multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered at CIBC Square in the Financial District of Toronto, Ontario. ...

, the corporate law firm

Stikeman Elliott Stikeman Elliott LLP is a Canadian business law firm founded in 1952 by H. Heward Stikeman and Fraser Elliott. The firm has offices located in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver, New York, London and Sydney. Since 2021, the firm's cha ...

, as well as numerous other businesses. The building is located at 1155

René Lévesque Boulevard René Lévesque Boulevard (french: Boulevard René-Lévesque), previously named Dorchester Boulevard () is one of the main streets in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is a main east–west thoroughfare passing through the downtown core in the borou ...

West next to

Dorchester Square , photo = Square Dorchester 01.jpg , photo_width = , photo_caption = , map = Canada Montreal , map_width = , type = Town square , location = Downtown Montreal, Ville-Marie Montreal, Quebec, Canada , nearest_city = , coords = , coo ...

facing the imposing but dwarfed

Sun Life Building The Sun Life Building (french: Édifice Sun Life) is a historic , 24-storey office building at 1155 Metcalfe Street (Montreal), Metcalfe Street on Dorchester Square in the city's Downtown Montreal, downtown core of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The b ...

. Part of the fire-damaged Windsor Hotel was demolished to make room for construction, with the remaining portion being converted to offices in the 1980s.

History

The project was initiated by the

Canadian Bank of Commerce The Canadian Bank of Commerce was a Canadian bank which was founded in 1867, and had hundreds of branches throughout Canada. It merged in 1961 with the Imperial Bank of Canada to form the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. History In 1866 a ...

and announced in 1959. While the building was under construction, the Bank of Commerce merged with the

Imperial Bank of Canada The Imperial Bank of Canada was a Canadian bank based in Toronto, Ontario, during the late 19th century and early 20th century. History It was founded in 1873 as the Imperial Bank in Toronto by Henry Stark Howland, former vice president of the Ca ...

to form the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, effective June 1, 1961. The Imperial Bank abandoned its concurrent plan for a new head office at 612 McGill Street; that building was instead occupied by Crédit foncier franco-canadien, and since 1988 by

Quebecor Quebecor Inc. is a Canadian diversified media and telecommunications company serving Québec based in Montreal. It was spelled Quebecor in both English and French until May 2012, when shareholders voted to add the acute accent, Québecor, in F ...

. Completed in 1962, a few months before

Place Ville-Marie Place Ville Marie (PVM for short) is a large office and shopping complex skyscraper in Downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada, comprising four office buildings and an underground shopping plaza. It serves as the main and official headquarters for Roya ...

, the CIBC Tower was the tallest building in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and the entire

Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...

when it was first built, until being surpassed later that year by Place Ville-Marie where a

penthouse Penthouse most often refers to: *Penthouse apartment, a special apartment on the top floor of a building *Penthouse (magazine), ''Penthouse'' (magazine), a British-founded men's magazine *Mechanical penthouse, a floor, typically located directly u ...

was added by the competing Royal Bank for that express purpose. The Consulate of Israel was on the 26th floor of the building and as such, it was sometimes the site of demonstrations related to the

Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most enduring conflicts, beginning in the mid-20th century. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, alongside other ef ...

. The consulate has since relocated to

Westmount Square Westmount Square is a residential and office complex located in Westmount, Quebec, Canada. There are two residential apartment buildings and two office buildings. These towers sit atop an underground shopping centre consisting of thirty-five sh ...

in Westmount.

Architecture

The tower is exceptionally slender with only of gross floor area per floor, because of a zoning regulation limiting the total building floor area to twelve times the property area. Its façade is more ornamental than that of the average International style tower, with horizontal strips of glass curtain wall alternating with

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...

s of various types of stone, including green slate that was quarried in Wales. The building was fully renovated in 1991, and the highly visible CIBC logo at the top was redesigned in 2004 and again in 2013. Inside, levels 15 and 29 are transfer floors; level 16 is a triple-height

mechanical floor A mechanical floor, mechanical penthouse, mechanical layer or mechanical level is a story of a high-rise building that is dedicated to mechanical and electronics equipment. "Mechanical" is the most commonly used term, but words such as ''utility ...

that is skipped in the

floor numbering A storey (British English) or story (American English) is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the word are ''storeys'' (UK) and ''stories'' (US). T ...

of the passenger elevators. Levels 42-44 are also mechanical floors; level 45 was originally an indoor

observation deck An observation deck, observation platform, or viewing platform is an elevated sightseeing platform usually situated upon a tall architectural structure, such as a skyscraper or observation tower. Observation decks are sometimes enclosed ...

but was closed in the 1970s. The top of the tower are actually an open-air raised partition, built sometime after construction, that hides the rooftop elevator control rooms. Without this extra structure, the actual roof height is , and approximately when counting the elevator penthouse. It is the fifth tallest building in Montreal, but an

antenna Antenna ( antennas or antennae) may refer to: Science and engineering * Antenna (radio), also known as an aerial, a transducer designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic (e.g., TV or radio) waves * Antennae Galaxies, the name of two collid ...

raises the total height to , the tallest pinnacle in Montreal. Until the end of 2018,

French-language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

CKOI-FM :For the CKOI radio network, see ''CKOI (network)''. CKOI-FM is a French-language Canadian radio station located in Verdun, Quebec and serving the Greater Montreal area, airing a CHR/Top 40 radio format. Owned and operated by Cogeco, CKOI-FM bro ...

transmitted its 307,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

signal from atop the building. The antenna has since been removed.

Tenants

Euler Hermes Allianz Trade is an international insurance company that offers a range of services including trade credit insurance, debt collection, surety bonds and guarantees, business fraud insurance and political risk protection. A subsidiary of Allian ...

Macquarie Group Macquarie Group Limited () is an Australian global financial services group. Headquartered and listed in Australia (), Macquarie employs more than 17,000 staff in 33 markets, is the world's largest infrastructure asset manager and Australia' ...

Russell Investments Russell Investments is an investment firm headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Corporate overview According to ''American Banker'', Russell Investments has approximately $300 billion of assets under management, as of September 2019. The firm r ...

Stikeman Elliott LLP Stikeman Elliott LLP is a Canadian business law firm founded in 1952 by H. Heward Stikeman and Fraser Elliott. The firm has offices located in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver, New York, London and Sydney. Since 2021, the firm's cha ...

* Vilaron Corporation * Linkeo.com *

MNP LLP MNP (previously known as Meyers Norris Penny) is one of the largest full-service chartered professional accountancy and business advisory firms in Canada. MNP's head office is in Calgary, Alberta, and has offices from Vancouver Island to St. John' ...

ACE Aviation Holdings ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. is a Canadian holding company that is the former parent company of Air Canada. It is headquartered in Montreal. In 2012, the company signified its intent to dissolve, but is still undergoing liquidation as of 2020. Hi ...

* Parkland Fuel Corporation

References

External links

Official website
{{Montreal landmarks Office buildings completed in 1962 Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Skyscrapers in Montreal Bank buildings in Canada International style architecture in Canada Downtown Montreal Peter Dickinson (architect) buildings 1962 establishments in Quebec Skyscraper office buildings in Canada

History

Architecture

Tenants

See also

References

External links