Description of Historic Place

The McCormicks Limited Building is a four-storey brick warehouse erected in central Winnipeg in 1912 on the southern edge of the Canadian Pacific Railway's (CPR's) main line and yards. The City of Winnipeg designation applies to the building on its footprint.

Heritage Value

The McCormicks Limited Building is a fine representative of the type of warehouses built in Winnipeg during the economic boom that preceded World War I. The subdued Neo-Classical-style building, designed by J.N. Semmens, displays many elements not usually found in Winnipeg warehouse architecture, including a heavy cornice, smooth stone instead of ground-level rustication, bold red brick facades and abundant limestone highlights. The building's strategic location recalls the importance attached to rail access in the pre-1914 period which, in turn, attracted extensive industrial and commercial development along the south and north sides of the CPR's Winnipeg Yards. First occupied by the Turner-Walker Co., manufacturers' agents, this warehouse later found new life as a food processing plant, then as residential apartments contributing to renewal of the North Logan area.

Source: City of Winnipeg Committee on Planning and Community Services Meeting Minute, February 15, 1988

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the McCormicks Limited Building site include:
- the building's location between Henry and Higgins avenues west of the Ellen Street intersection

Key elements that define the building's exterior heritage character and Neo-Classical styling include:
- the unusual elongated rectangular massing with a curved east elevation and flat roof
- the north, south and east facades of red brick and the west elevation of common clay brick
- the symmetrical south elevation, the main level faced in ashlar limestone and featuring a centred cut-stone entrance of Tuscan columns supporting an entablature and framing double doors with a transom
- the loading bays on the east and north elevations featuring radiating brick arches with numbered ashlar keystones and corner blocks
- the square and rectangular openings throughout, many paired and featuring smooth-cut limestone sills and heavy lintels save the few on the west facade with arched brick voussoirs
- the details of the north, south and east elevations, including the prominent metal cornice with dentils, modillions and stamped wave motifs, the stone belt course atop the first storey, wide pilasters, square and diamond-shaped stone accents arranged in cruciform groupings on the recessed spandrels and in rows below the cornice, the brick parapet holding a sign reading 'McCormick's Limited', stone coping, etc.

Key elements that define the building's function-oriented interior details and finishes include:
- the formal plan, with spaces organized by the grid of the post-and-beam construction and high ceilings throughout
- the details, including exposed brick walls and large wooden beams throughout, simply carved wooden balustrades, etc.