The Suncor Energy Centre, formerly the Petro-Canada Centre, is a project composed of two

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies und ...

and reflective

glass Glass is a non-Crystallinity, crystalline, often transparency and translucency, transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most ...

-clad office towers of 32 floors and 52 floors, situated in the office core of

downtown Calgary Downtown Calgary is a dense urban district in central Calgary, Alberta. It contains the second largest concentration of head offices in Canada, despite only being the country's fourth largest city in terms of population. The downtown is divided in ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

. The

Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is an international body in the field of tall buildings and sustainable urban design. A non-profit organization based at the Monroe Building in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United State ...

lists the west tower ( as measured to top of the structure), as the 19th tallest building in Canada and the fourth tallest

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ri ...

outside of

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

. The west tower overtook the Calgary Tower as the tallest free-standing structure in Calgary from its completion in 1984, until being surpassed by the neighbouring Bow in 2010. The office towers encompass of rentable office space with the complex also containing of retail and underground parking area. A glass-enclosed walkway (part of the +15 System) provides shelter and easy access to the surrounding buildings. The building was often called ''Red Square'' in its early years, a derisive reference to its primary occupant

Petro-Canada Petro-Canada is a retail and wholesale marketing brand subsidiary of Suncor Energy. Until 1991, it was a federal Crown corporation (a state-owned enterprise). In August 2009, Petro-Canada merged with Suncor Energy, with Suncor shareholders rec ...

, which was a federal

Crown Corporation A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the governmen ...

created under

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Pierre Trudeau's

National Energy Program The National Energy Program (french: Programme énergétique national, NEP) was an energy policy of the Canadian federal government from 1980 to 1985. Created under the Liberal government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau by Energy Minister Mar ...

. Following the completion of the complex in 1984, one writer for the ''

Calgary Herald The ''Calgary Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Publication began in 1883 as ''The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate, and General Advertiser''. It is owned by the Postmedia Network. History ''The Ca ...

'' described the buildings as "a twin-towered, $200-million monument to

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

", and later

Premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of govern ...

Peter Lougheed Edgar Peter Lougheed ( ; July 26, 1928 – September 13, 2012) was a Canadian lawyer and Progressive Conservative politician who served as the tenth premier of Alberta from 1971 to 1985, presiding over a period of reform and economic growth. Bo ...

would blame Petro-Canada and the two towers for the collapse of the Calgary real-estate boom, in part by

flooding the market Flooding the market is an excess amount of inventory for sale causing an undesired drop in price for the product that can, in extreme cases, make the price go negative or make the products impossible to sell at any price. Businesses take measure ...

. Petro-Canada was

privatized Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

in 1991 under the

Brian Mulroney Martin Brian Mulroney ( ; born March 20, 1939) is a Canadian lawyer, businessman, and politician who served as the 18th prime minister of Canada from 1984 to 1993. Born in the eastern Quebec city of Baie-Comeau, Mulroney studied political ...

government and acquired in 2009 by the complex's current namesake,

Suncor Energy Suncor Energy (french: Suncor Énergie) is a Canadian integrated energy company based in Calgary, Alberta. It specializes in production of synthetic crude from oil sands. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Suncor Energy was ranked as the 48th-larg ...

, which continues to operate the company as a subsidiary.

History

Planning for the complex began in the late-1970s following the creation of Petro-Canada. Petro-Canada came to an agreement with the

West German West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

firm ARCI Inc. to jointly develop an ARCI-owned site in Calgary to host the Crown Corporation's new headquarters. ARCI Inc served as an investment corporation, which had purchased the site several years early, and continues to be owned by the German

House of Arenberg The House of Arenberg is an aristocratic lineage that is constituted by three successive families that took their name from Arenberg, a small territory of the Holy Roman Empire in the Eifel region. The inheritance of the House of Croÿ-Aarschot m ...

. In May 1980, a $200-million design was proposed with an all-glass, three-tower design including a 25-storey tower to be completed in 1982 and a larger 50-storey tower completed later in 1983. The Calgary Planning Commission rejected the proposal in Fall 1980 as the site was not large enough for the density three towers would provide, and the all-glass design was not desirable for the city. Subsequently, Petro-Canada purchased the

air rights Air rights are the property interest in the "space" above the earth's surface. Generally speaking, owning, or renting, land or a building includes the right to use and build in the space above the land without interference by others. This lega ...

from the neighbouring Calgary Chamber of Commerce for $2.5 million and received approval for a granite-clad two-tower design with a density bonus option of four storeys on the smaller tower. Construction on the complex began on April 2, 1982. During construction, local controversy arose when no Canadian bids were received to supply the site with exterior granite cladding, which resulted in the use of $500,000 of Finnish granite, which was cut and polished in Italy and shipped to the Calgary site for installation. Another local controversy was the installation of

bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Eu ...

signage (French and English), which Petro-Canada head office insisted upon. On January 4, 1983, the West tower reached 191 metres in height, exceeding the Calgary Tower and becoming the tallest freestanding structure in Calgary and

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

. The 52-storey west tower was

topped off In building construction, topping out (sometimes referred to as topping off) is a builders' rite traditionally held when the last beam (or its equivalent) is placed atop a structure during its construction. Nowadays, the ceremony is often parlay ...

on May 26, 1983, and the complex was completed in 1984. During construction in April 1983, one of the site's tower cranes collapsed, killing its operator. In December 1998, Petro-Canada sold their remaining half interest in the complex to Gentra Inc. (former subsidiary of

Brookfield Properties Brookfield Properties is a North American subsidiary of commercial real estate company Brookfield Property Partners, which itself is a subsidiary of alternative asset management company Brookfield Asset Management. It is responsible for the pro ...

) for $200 million (equivalent to $ million in ), which included Petro-Canada signing a 15-year lease to remain in the towers.

Major tenants

Major tenants of the Suncor Energy Centre include Suncor Energy Inc.,

Precision Drilling Corporation Precision Drilling Corporation is the largest drilling rig contractor in Canada, also providing oil field rental and supplies. History Precision Drilling Ltd. was founded in 1951. In 1987, Precision Drilling was acquired by Cypress Drillin ...

, Taqa North, Crescent Point Energy, Enbridge, Direct Energy,

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four account ...

and Weatherford Canada.

References

External links

Brookfield Properties Building Page for Suncor Energy Centre
* * {{Calgary landmarks Office buildings completed in 1984 Modernist architecture in Canada Skyscrapers in Calgary Headquarters in Canada Twin towers Brookfield Properties buildings WZMH Architects buildings Skyscraper office buildings in Canada Retail buildings in Canada

History

Major tenants

See also

References

External links