| Royal Bank Tower | |
| Alternate Names: | Tour de la Banque Royale |
| Location: | 360 Saint-Jacques Street Montreal, Quebec |
| Coordinates: | 45.5019°N -73.5594°W |
| Start Date: | 1927 |
| Completion Date: | 1928 |
| Building Type: | Office |
| Roof: | 121m (397feet) |
| Floor Count: | 22 |
| Elevator Count: | 8 |
| Floor Area: | 344400square feet |
| Architect: | York, Sawyer of New York and Sumner Godfrey Davenport of Montreal (as Chief Architect for the Royal Bank) |
| References: | [1] |
The Royal Bank Tower is a skyscraper at 360 Saint-Jacques Street in Montreal, Quebec. The 22-storey 121m (397feet) neo-classical tower was designed by the firm of York and Sawyer with the bank's chief architect Sumner Godfrey Davenport of Montreal.[2] Upon completion in 1928,[3] it was the tallest building in the entire British Empire, the tallest structure in all of Canada and the first building in the city that was taller than Montréal's Notre-Dame Basilica built nearly a century before.
The bank's first official head office was at Hollis and George in Halifax in 1879.[4] In 1907 the Royal Bank of Canada moved its head office from Halifax to Montreal. As its original building on Saint-Jacques Street turned out to be too small, in 1926 the board of directors of the biggest bank in Canada hired New York architects York and Sawyer to build a prestigious new building a short distance westward. Between 1920 and 1926 the bank had bought up all the property between Saint-Jacques, Saint-Pierre, Notre-Dame and Dollard Streets to demolish all the buildings there including the old Mechanics' Institute and the ten-storey Bank of Ottawa building in order to make space for the new 22-storey building.
In 1962, the Royal Bank moved its main office to another famous Montreal building, Place Ville-Marie, however kept a branch in the impressive main hall of the old building, situated in Old Montreal. That branch relocated to the nearby Tour de la Bourse in July 2012.[5]