TANNER BUILDING

Firm: Dominion Construction

Address: 505 8 Avenue SW

Date of final plans: 1953

Status: standing as built

Providing a name for this building is a bit difficult, given it never seemed to have one. It has been refered to variously as the Eighth Avenue Building or the Bank of Toronto Building. I've chosen to call it the Tanner Building, for it was the Tanners who were responsible for its construction.

The Bank of Toronto purchased the lot at the southwest corner of 8th Avenue and 4th Street in 1929, but its plans to construct a new main branch were disrupted by the Great Depression. In 1953 the bank sold the property to the Tanner & Co. Limited, provided the Tanners would construct an office building with a bank branch on the main floor. Tanner & Co, later renamed Tanner Bros., was an investment dealership run by C. Reginald Tanner (1904–1984) and E. Harold Tanner (1901–1982). The Tanners also founded Triad Oil.

The building cost $1 million and upon completion, the Tanners sold it to Great-West Life Assurance. The design was a near exact copy of the Alaska Pine Building and Bentall Building in Vancouver, two other structures Dominion had designed and built. Several years later, Dominion Construction, a Vancouver company owned by the Bentall family, constructed Calgary's Bentall Building.