Empire Landmark Hotel, Modern skyscraper in West End, Vancouver, Canada
The Empire Landmark Hotel was a 42-storey, 120.1 m tower at 1400 Robson Street in Vancouver's West End, designed in the brutalist style by architect Ross Lort. Its rectangular shaft of tan concrete carried rows of horizontal windows, and a dark circular disc overhung the top, housing the Cloud 9 revolving restaurant. The base was largely hidden behind lower buildings on the street.
The building opened in 1974 as Sheraton Landmark and served as the city's tallest hotel for many years. It closed permanently in 2017 and was demolished in 2019 to make way for a new residential development.
The hotel's name changed with its owners: opened as the Sheraton Landmark, it became the Empire Landmark Hotel in 1997 after Asia Standard International Group dropped the Sheraton franchise. Its top-floor Cloud 9 was one of only two revolving restaurants in Vancouver, the other at Harbour Centre.
The building was demolished in 2019 and no longer stands, so it cannot be visited today. The site now hosts a new residential development that reflects how Vancouver's urban landscape continues to change.
The Empire Landmark Hotel was the tallest voluntarily demolished building in Canada, surpassing the 88 m Old Toronto Star Building torn down in 1972. Its demolition ran floor by floor from March 2018 to May 2019. The site now holds Landmark On Robson, completed in 2024 with two towers of 34 and 32 storeys.
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