Scotia Plaza, Office skyscraper in Financial District, Toronto, Canada
Scotia Plaza is a 275 m office tower at King and Bay Streets, built 1985–1988 by WZMH Architects. Its parallelogram floorplan rises 68 storeys, clad in Red Napoleon Granite quarried in Sweden and polished in Italy, with dark tinted glass windows. The north and south facades step back to create corner offices, while the east and west faces carry a recessed stepped chevron between floors 56 and 68.
Olympia and York developed Scotia Plaza as an expansion of Scotiabank's adjacent headquarters, building the tower between 1985 and 1988 to WZMH Architects' design. The complex incorporates the 1946–1951 Beaux-Arts Bank of Nova Scotia Building at 44 King Street West, built on the site of Cawthra House and designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1975. After Olympia and York was liquidated in 1993, Scotiabank led a consortium that bought the mortgage and became majority owner. In 2012 the bank sold the tower for $1.27 billion to Dundee and H&R real estate trusts.
The red granite exterior and slanted floor plan shape how this tower stands out among other buildings in the Financial District. Visitors notice how the structure reflects a specific era of Toronto's banking identity through its bold architectural choices.
Scotia Plaza is bounded by Yonge, King West, Bay and Adelaide West, and connects to the PATH network. The tower has six storeys below ground and 40 retail stores; the historic 44 King Street West building links to the tower through a 14-storey glass atrium.
The excavation for Scotia Plaza reached 33.5 metres, the deepest ever dug for a building in Canada. Below the tower, Scotiabank keeps its vault of gold and other bullion. The tower's floor plan is a parallelogram, and its Red Napoleon Granite was quarried in Sweden, cut and polished in Italy, then shipped to Canada.
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