One60 Elgin (stylized as ONE60 Elgin), formerly Place Bell, is an office tower in

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

, Ontario, Canada. It is the 12th tallest building in Ottawa—Gatineau with a height of . The 27-storey building stands on Elgin Street in

downtown Ottawa Downtown Ottawa is the central area of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is sometimes referred to as the Central Business District and contains Ottawa's financial district. It is bordered by the Ottawa River to the north, the Rideau Canal to the east, ...

, and is distinguishable by its wide stature (the building is unusually large in dimensions considering its height, presumably to avoid having a 50+ storey building greatly overshadow the

Peace Tower The Peace Tower () is a focal bell and clock tower sitting on the central axis of the Centre Block of the Canadian parliament buildings in Ottawa, Ontario. The present incarnation replaced the Victoria Tower, after the latter burned down in ...

). The building was built by Olympia and York in 1971 as the Ottawa headquarters of

Bell Canada Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun, Quebec, in Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in the province ...

. The site originally contained a number of small commercial buildings and the large Gloucester Street Convent. Original plans called for the complex to be much larger and include the entire block to the north. This would have entailed demolishing several heritage buildings, including the First Baptist Church. The main level contains a shopping concourse with a number of businesses. The rear of the structure contains a

parking garage A multistorey car park (Commonwealth English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistorey, parking building, parking structure, parkade (Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck, or indoor parking, is a building designed fo ...

. In the 1980s the owners sued the city after

salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

placed on the roads by the city corroded the steel structure of the garage and it had to be closed for several years. Bell, which remains the building's largest tenant, owned the building until 1998, when it was sold to TrizecHahn for $17 million. After the purchase, TrizecHahn conducted significant renovations. In 2002 it was bought by H&R Real Estate Investment Trust for $21.1 million. The building underwent extensive renovations from 2015 to 2017 after which it was renamed One60 Elgin. In 2019,

beehive A beehive is an enclosed structure which houses honey bees, subgenus '' Apis.'' Honey bees live in the beehive, raising their young and producing honey as part of their seasonal cycle. Though the word ''beehive'' is used to describe the nest of ...

s were installed on the building's roof in order to combat declining

honey bee A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to mainland Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the ...

populations. In 2023, it was sold to Groupe Mach for $277 million. One60 Elgin is briefly featured in the opening title sequence of the Ottawa-made TV series ''

You Can't Do That On Television ''You Can't Do That on Television'' is a Canadian sketch comedy television series that aired locally in 1979 before airing in the United States in 1981. It featured adolescent and teenage actors performing in a sketch comedy format similar to A ...

'' as a building labelled "Television Network", where a school bus pulls up to the front door and a number of children flood out and into the building, trampling the doorman (played by Les Lye).

References

''Exploring Ottawa: an architectural guide to the nation's capital.'' Harold Kalman and John Roaf. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983. {{reflist

External links

Buildings and structures in Ottawa Modernist architecture in Canada

See also

References

External links