TELCHEN BUILDING

Firm: Clayton, Bond and Mogridge

Address: 514 5 Avenue SW

Date of final plans: March 1958

Status: demolished circa 1980

The Telchen Building was one of two two-storey offices built concurrently by Mire Katchen and designed by CB&M. The plans for the Telchen were finished in March 1958, and the plans for its companion, the Shelbourne Building, were finished in April 1958. The naming is a bit confusing. The Telchen was built for a company called "Shekat Holdings" (Shelbourne-Katchen?), while the Shelbourne was built for a company called "Shelbourne Holdings." By the early 1960s, Katchen's affairs seemed to have been consolidated into a company called Telchen Holdings, from which this building got its name.

In the Herald article on its contruction, the Royal-Liverpool Insurance Group is named as the main tenant. Standard Life Insurance was also an early tenant. The Royal-Liverpool Insurance Group was created in 1919 upon the merger of Royal Insurance with Liverpool & London & Globe Insurance. The company appears to have begun operations in Calgary in 1940. Around 1959 it changed its name to the Royal-Globe Insurance Group. In 1996 it merged with Sun Alliance into the RSA Insurance Group.