Canada Place (Edmonton)
Canada Place is a glass-and-steel office building in Edmonton, Alberta. With a distinctive pink colour and stepped shape, the building is in downtown Edmonton, where it towers over the neighbouring Shaw Conference Centre and overlooks the North Saskatchewan River valley. The building was built by the Government of Canada and is the main federal government offices for Edmonton and much of Western Canada.
The building opened in 1988 as a replacement for the Federal Public Building, which had been the main federal offices since 1958. Construction lasted from November, 1985 until the summer of 1988, and was worked on by WZMH Group Architects. The building consists of two stepped office blocks, ranging from 15 to 13 storeys in height, connected by an atrium. The total floor space is 85,800 m². The original design of the building had an additional, taller, third office block at the rear, however this plan was scaled back to two blocks after it was felt office occupancy levels in downtown Edmonton at the time were not low enough to justify the larger building. The pavilion was engineered to accommodation the third tower in the future, should it be desired.
In 2006, the federal government hired BMO Capital Markets and RBC Capital Markets Real Estate Group Inc. to study whether continuing to own Canada Place made best fiscal sense. The firms concluded it was more prudent for the Crown to sell and leaseback the building to a private developer, along with eight other Crown-owned properties across Canada. All nine buildings were sold in 2007 to Larco Investments Ltd., a Vancouver, BC-based company, and leased for 25 years.
The building is linked to the Shaw Conference Centre and the Citadel Theatre via the Edmonton Pedway. There is a publicly open food court in the lower level of the building, as well as underground parking.
Coordinates: 53°32′34″N 113°29′11″W / 53.54266°N 113.48639°W
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