First Canadian Place officer tower to receive a facelift

[GDS]

First Canadian Place officer tower to receive a facelift
680News staff Toronto | Thursday, September 24th, 2009 7:56 am Toronto


- First Canadian Place, Canada's tallest office tower, will be receiving a $100-million makeover.

There are currently 45,000 slabs of white marble on the 72-storey home for the Bank of Montreal.

But, Brookfield Properties, the building's owner, is going to replace the marble with 7,800 panels of white glass.

The National Post reported the property, which opened in 1975, has already seen a refurbishment of some of the marble slabs, but the look has deteriorated.

Tom Farley, president and CEO of Brookfield's Canadian commercial operations, told the paper that when the company bought the property in 2005, they knew it was a fixer-upper.

If the original builder had used thicker marble, it would have lasted 100 years.

Brookfield said it will also renovate the lobby of the tower.

The National Post called the renovation another positive signal for the downtown business core, with the recent opening of the Bay-Adelaide Centre and two other office towers opening before the end of the year.

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Hyrdo-Quebec are you listening??? Please renovate your POS.

[peluche]

Hyrdo-Quebec are you listening??? Please renovate your POS.

I completly agree Hydro Quebec needs to renovate their building.

But it will not happen anytime soon. The mentality here is that it would be a waste of money. I can already read the folowing headline in the Journal de Montreal......

Hydro se refait une beauté de plusieurs millions pendant que nos hopitaux manquent d'argent.

Hydro will wait for a brick or piece of material to fall, and will then invoke security to proceed with very minor renovation.

[WestAust]

As for the FCP, i'm not sure i like what Brookfield is doing.

This tower was build by the Reichmann's of O&Y who started their business as... marble and tiles salesman, marble was the foundation of the company, and FCP was their flagship. Changing it to glass will not be the same

[acpnc]

First Canadian Place officer tower to receive a facelift
680News staff Toronto | Thursday, September 24th, 2009 7:56 am Toronto


- First Canadian Place, Canada's tallest office tower, will be receiving a $100-million makeover.

There are currently 45,000 slabs of white marble on the 72-storey home for the Bank of Montreal.

But, Brookfield Properties, the building's owner, is going to replace the marble with 7,800 panels of white glass.

The National Post reported the property, which opened in 1975, has already seen a refurbishment of some of the marble slabs, but the look has deteriorated.

Tom Farley, president and CEO of Brookfield's Canadian commercial operations, told the paper that when the company bought the property in 2005, they knew it was a fixer-upper.

If the original builder had used thicker marble, it would have lasted 100 years.

Brookfield said it will also renovate the lobby of the tower.

The National Post called the renovation another positive signal for the downtown business core, with the recent opening of the Bay-Adelaide Centre and two other office towers opening before the end of the year.

-----

Hyrdo-Quebec are you listening??? Please renovate your POS.

It is definitely a matter of taste whether we prefere glass to marble, personnally I like its actual finish but unfortunately it is not stable enough to keep it as it is.

The fact that it lost one of its tile préviously, presents a risk that no-one is ready to take and everyone will agree with that. Now it is probably cheaper to use glass than thicker marble which could explain that decision.

Nevertheless something has to be done and the building will keep, at least from a distance, more or less the same appearance.

Now when it comes with the renovation of the HQ building in Montréal, I remember that there was some proposals more or less a decade ago. Is it relevant right now?

We could ask the question and see it two ways: as expense for a broken government or an investment for a broken economy.

[Cataclaw]

What are you guys talking about?

The Hydro Quebec building IS a public health danger... i get nauseous and feel like throwing up every time i walk by those vomit-green panels.

[FFJ-MTL]

Before







How it is supposed to look after renovation

[francely57]

The Hydro Quebec building IS a public health danger...

Peut-être?

Hydro-Québec, 18 août 2009 (enfin trouvé une utilité à cette photo)

[Cataclaw]

Wow! C'est vraiment beau! Content pour Toronto en tout cas.. la First Canadian Place va être incroyable!

Hydro Québec : faut juste nettoyer un peu l'édifice et changer les panneaux vert pour du blanc, argent ou noir métallique et voilà, super beau aussi.

[peluche]

Hydro Québec : faut juste nettoyer un peu l'édifice et changer les panneaux vert pour du blanc, argent ou noir métallique et voilà, super beau aussi.

Resterait à savoir si cela serait considérés par certains comme étant une destruction du patrimoine.

[MTLskyline]

That is cool! I was thinking it would just be a boring glass box at first, but it actually is an improvement.

I'm not sure its money well spent though. What's the point?