Description of Historic Place

The Westminster Trust Building is a landmark commercial building, with a distinctive cream-coloured glazed terra cotta and red brick facade with a large projecting cornice. Built on a steeply sloping site, the front facade is eight storeys while the rear facade is seven storeys. It is situated on the northeast corner of Begbie and Columbia Streets, with a rear frontage on Clarkson Street, in New Westminster's historic downtown core.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the Westminster Trust Building is directly associated with the Edwardian-era development of downtown New Westminster, marking a formative period in B.C.'s resource-based economy. After the devastation of the Great Fire of 1898, the downtown was rebuilt immediately and continued to develop during the great western Canadian economic boom that preceded the First World War.

Built in 1911-12, the Westminster Trust Building is valued as a landmark structure on Columbia Street, the city's earliest and most historic area of commercial and institutional buildings. Much of the distinctive built form of Columbia Street dates from 1898 to 1913, when New Westminster was the major centre of commerce and industry for the booming Fraser Valley area, and served the agricultural, fishing and lumbering sectors of the economy. This was New Westminster's first true skyscraper and represents the progressive design of the early twentieth century. Built for the Westminster Trust and Safe Deposit Co. Ltd., it employed a steel frame and concrete construction. Originally designed as a six storey structure, two additional floors were added before it was started, demonstrating the growth and prosperity of the era. No expense was spared to provide the tenant with every possible modern convenience, including steam heating, running water, electric light, gas and telephone outlets. The building had two staircases, giving easy access between the various floors, in addition to its two electric elevators. The building was fireproof; besides being of concrete construction, it had a special fireproof and burglar-proof steel vault for safety deposit purposes, fire hydrants on each floor and a fire escape at the back of the building. Influenced by the Chicago School of architecture, the Westminster Trust Building displays elements of verticality and repetition of fenestration associated with the utilitarian multi-storey commercial buildings of this era. The facade design uses the convention of clearly defining the base, shaft and capital areas. It employs a cream-coloured terra cotta base and cornice, while the shaft is clad with richly-coloured high-fire pressed bricks.

The Westminster Trust Building is valued for its association with its architects Gardiner and Mercer. The firm was a partnership of brothers Francis George Gardiner (1878-1966) and Andrew Lamb Mercer (1878-1959); they were considered the city's leading architects at the time, and subsequently had prominent careers in British Columbia.

Source: Heritage Planning Files, City of New Westminster

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Westminster Trust Building include its:
- location at a prominent corner on Columbia Street at Begbie Street, with a rear frontage on Clarkson Street, part of a grouping of late Victorian and Edwardian era commercial buildings in historic downtown New Westminster, with three primary facades
- siting on the property lines, with no setbacks
- form, scale and cubic massing, as expressed in its eight storey plus lower level height, flat roof, response to the sloping site and general symmetry
- steel and concrete frame construction
- Chicago School influence, as demonstrated in its tripartite facade articulation into base, shaft and capital; six-storey high pilasters; prominent projecting cornice; and banks of triple assembly windows
- exterior decorative elements, such as: variegated pressed brick, stone and glazed decorative terra cotta cladding; decorative cornice, brackets, string courses, garlands and geometric insets; marble finish in the main entrance on Columbia Street; and date keystone and insignia of the Westminster Trust and Deposit Company
- interior decorative elements, such as its stairs with marble treads and wainscoting; corridors finished with terrazzo flooring; and cast plaster ceilings at the ground floor level