Article Database - Bank Faces an Uncertain Future

Reprinted from Real Estate Weekly (Edmonton), September 7, 2000

The sign on the 50-year-old structure says “For Sale” but what it really says is “Uncertain Future.” The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce building at the corner of Jasper Avenue and 100th Street sits vacant now that the bank has moved to its rejuvenated branch at 101st and Jasper.

It’s the first time in more than a century that no banking transactions are being conducted on the site. The Imperial Bank of Canada, the first bank to come to Edmonton, set up shop at this corner around 1892.

For the next 70 years the bank did business here, constructing three buildings and, for a time, even operating out of a Quonset Hut across Jasper Avenue -- the first such structure to be used for banking anywhere in Canada. In 1961, the Imperial Bank of Canada merged with the Canadian Bank of Commerce and the company, with assets of $4.6 billion, became the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

The location has thus continued operating as a CIBC branch until earlier this year. As a long chapter in Edmonton comes to a close, it’s worthwhile to reflect on the path taken by the Imperial Bank, its successor and the structures that have served at this location so well for so long.

Information from the City of Edmonton Archives indicates the Imperial Bank commenced operations in 1891, shortly after three of its officers rode the second train into Strathcona on the Edmonton & Calgary Railway. Among them was G.R.F. Kirkpatrick, accountant at the Calgary branch who had just been named Edmonton branch manager.

Kirkpatrick set up operations in a second-floor office of a wood frame building on the west side of 102nd Street just north of 100th Avenue. The branch began serving customers September 4, 1891, making it the only bank branch between Calgary and the Arctic. And here’s another bit of trivia for you: the building was owned by famous pioneer hotel operator Donald Ross.

Kirkpatrick later recalled: “We opened on September 4th in a room upstairs, with just a couple of desks and chairs, until the office was ready, which took a few weeks’ time.” By the following year, Kirkpatrick had relocated the branch to the corner of Jasper Avenue and McDougall Avenue (now 100th Street), where the bank rented a corner section of the building. Later on, the bank bought the stucture and lot for $10,000.

Kirkpatrick was to remain an Imperial Bank manager in Edmonton for a record 45 years, retiring in 1936. He went on to become Edmonton’s first treasurer in 1904 and then presided over the construction of an all-new Imperial Bank branch on Jasper and McDougall site in 1907-08.

The grand Classical Revival structure featured an entrance portico supported by giant columns three storeys tall elevated on one-storey high plinths. The scale of the structure, with those columns, its stone staircase and wrought iron entrance doors, dwarfed pedestrains and established a very powerful presence on Jasper Avenue.

The building was constructed by local contractor W.H. Gardner and designed in part by the Edmonton architectural firm Johnson and Barnes. Robert Percy Barnes later went on to design the Goodridge Block (W.W. Sales Building), at the corner of Jasper Avenue and 97th Street, among other Edmonton structures.

A review of the new three-storey bank building, published in the Edmonton Bulletin February 28, 1908, burst with superlatives. “The main hall of the bank itself is where the chief interest lies. Here the flooring is of white marble mosaic, with a border of colored marble, while giants pilasters of wonderful imitation Verde antique marble, in a green tone, rise to richly-tinted deep cream ceiling.”

The building survived until the boom days of the late 1940s, when the Imperial Bank apparently decided a modern structure was in order. And so down it came in the fall of 1950 and the site was prepared for its architectural successor.

The Imperial Bank of Canada opened a branch across Jasper Avenue, in the shadow of the Hotel Macdonald, in the form of a Quonset Hut. The distinctive structure commenced operations July 10, 1950 and was to be used for the next 18 months. Obviously concerned about the impression that this hut location was not secure from burglars, the bank went to great lengths to spread the word that “even scratching a match on its side would set off an alarm.”

In the meantime, construction of the new branch on the north side of Jasper Avenue was soon under way. Designed by Imperial Bank architect A.J. Everett, with the Edmonton firm Rule Wynn and Rule as associate architects, the $950,000 project called for a four-storey structure of structural steel and reinforced concrete.

It was to be clad with white Indiana limestone above a base of black crystal-flaked granite around doors and windows. The building permit issued in January 1951 listed W.C. Wells Construction of Edmonton as the contractor.

But a shortage of structural steel brought by national defence department regulations controlling the supply of structural steel halted construction with just the basement and main floor complete, and so the branch officially opened on July 20th, 1952 as a one-storey building. Flanking the name plates on the south and west upper walls of the building were bas-relief designs indicating the era of rail and air progress.

The main hall was finished in contrasting dark and light marble with “black-gold” marble counters. The east wall was commanded by three photographic murals measuring six feet by ten feet. The images, by renowned Edmonton photographer Alfred Blyth, captured Lower Waterfowl Lake, the Edmonton power house and grain-threshing near Ellerslie.

A newspaper story in July 1952 reported that illumination in the main banking hall was provided by “soft, natural light from unique ceiling fixtures which can be serviced from the roof space over the banking room.” A huge modern vault was situated in the basement, providing room for customer safety deposit boxes and for bank funds and documents.

It wasn’t until 1953 that the project resumed and the top storeys of what became a seven-storey building were completed in the spring of 1954 at a cost of $1 million. Among the noteworthy design elements are metal spandrels between the windows with the bank’s logo and the quoins and pilasters stylized as bands of rectangles. Indiana limestone and black granite provide the bank with a sleek geometric silhouette.

The building has been virtually unaltered since then and, in recognition of its heritage significance, listed on the “A” section of the Register of Historic Resources in Edmonton.

Information for this article sourced with assistance of the staff of the City of Edmonton Archives.

Lawrence Herzog has been telling the stories of Edmonton people and places for more than a dozen years through his regular heritage column in Real Estate Weekly. His book, Built On Coal: A History of Beverly, Edmonton's Working Class Town, appeared on Edmonton’s best-seller lists for many weeks.

Real Estate Weekly is published by the Edmonton Real Estate Board to advertise properties for sale through member agencies. Each issue contains at least one, often several, articles on heritage buildings and issues in Edmonton and district.

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