Description of Historic Place

The Bank of Commerce is a three-storey Classical Period Revival style building located at a key intersection in the downtown core. The historic place is confined to the footprint of the building.

Heritage Value

Sympathetically rehabilitated in 1997, the Bank of Commerce is Nanaimo's premier example of Classical Period Revival architecture. Built in 1914 during the 1912-1914 coal miner's strike, the building's classical conservatism represented tradition, stability and prosperity during a fractious and volatile period. Built to standard plans designed by Bank of Commerce staff architect Victor Horsburgh, the building transcends mere copying and responds dramatically to its prominent downtown corner location.

The Bank of Commerce Building's monumental presence, manifested in four massive columns, makes it second only to the Bastion as the city's most recognizable landmark.

The Bank of Commerce Building is an important intact example of the type of bank architecture that predominated throughout Canada during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Source: City of Nanaimo, Development Services Department, file #6800-20-H01-02/5-17 Church Street

Character-Defining Elements

Character-defining elements of the Bank of Commerce include:

-all of the elements of Classical Period Revival architecture including the brick and terra cotta cladding, four giant order columns, pilasters, keystones, transoms, flat roof with parapet, prominent bowed front, Greek caduceus symbol at centre roof line and elaborate shaped metal cornice

-the downtown location at a prominent intersection within a grouping of historic buildings.