The Omni King Edward Hotel

The Omni King Edward Hotel
The Omni King Edward Hotel
General information
Location	Canada
Address	37 King Street East Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Opening	10 May 1903
Owner	Omni Hotels & Resorts
Management	Omni Hotels & Resorts
Height	190 ft (58 m)
Technical details
Floor count	18
Design and construction
Architect	Henry Ives Cobb E.J. Lennox & Rolph
Other information
Number of rooms	298
Website
The Omni King Edward Hotel

The Omni King Edward Hotel is a historic luxury hotel in the Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The hotel is located at 37 King Street East, and occupies the entire block bounded by King Street on the north, Victoria Street on the east, Colborne Street on the south and Leader Lane on the west.

The King Edward Hotel was designed by Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb and Toronto architect E.J. Lennox for developer George Gooderham's Toronto Hotel Company, and was granted its name by namesake King Edward VII. The structure opened in 1903 with 400 rooms and 300 baths and claimed to be entirely fireproof.

In 1922, an 18-storey tower with 530 additional rooms was added to the east of the original eight-storey structure. On the two top floors of the tower is the Crystal Ballroom, that until the late 1950s was the most fashionable in the city. The room was closed in the late 1950s due to stricter fire codes and was not restored during the 1979-81 renovation. When the Omni Hotel chain invested in the hotel in 2013, restoring the ballroom was one of its announced goals. The ballroom re-opened in April 2017 after a 38-year absence.

Throughout the years, the hotel passed through the hands of a number of owners. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company became owners in 1933 when it foreclosed on the mortgage. Between 1941 and 1950, the hotel passed between C. A. Ripley and Vernon Cardy. Cardy's Hotel chain also owned the Mount Royal Hotel in Montreal, the Royal Connaught Hotel in Hamilton, Ontario, the General Brock Hotel in Niagara Falls, the Prince Edward Hotel in Windsor, Ontario and the Alpine Inn in Sainte-Adèle, Quebec. In 1950, Sheraton purchased Cardy's hotels and assumed management of the property, renaming it The King Edward Sheraton.