Description of Historic Place

The Hull Block consists of a three-storey Edwardian-era brick mixed-use block on two city lots at a prominent corner location on an arterial street that links Edmonton's historic McCauley community with the historic downtown Boyle community.

Heritage Value

The Hull Block is significant because of its association with the notable Calgary entrepreneur William Roper Hull who came to Canada in 1873. He became a prominent Calgary civic leader and constructed many buildings including the Grain Exchange, the Alberta Block, the Albion Hall, the Opera House and his own mansion. The Hull Block is the only known building that he constructed in Edmonton.

The building is an excellent example of an Edwardian-era combination commercial and residential block, using red brick with pressed-metal and cast stone features on the two corner facades with white lime brick on the rear facades. The building design reflects the influence of the Edwardian-era with a tripartite facade arrangement and tall glazed storefronts for commercial uses. The building has value to the City as the most prominent landmark in the community, marked by a tall flagpole. The building has remained a prominent landmark to this day.

The significance also derives from its association with the development of the McCauley community, one of Edmonton's oldest settled neighbourhoods. The area was named after Matthew McCauley, the City of Edmonton's first mayor. It emerged as a financial, business and residential district along the axis of an important street access into the downtown. The significance of locating on this street is that it was one of only a few crossings of the Canadian National Railway tracks, which separated the downtown from the northerly communities.

Source: City of Edmonton (Bylaw: 13598)

Character-Defining Elements

The Edwardian-era architecture of the building is expressed in character-defining elements such as:
- prominent corner location;
- form, scale and massing;
- red clay brick facade construction with cast stone trims, accents, decorative balls capping the parapet pilasters, and the building name pediments on the two corner facades;
- white, lime brick construction of the secondary facades;
- tall, main floor, wood storefronts with recessed entrances, large display windows and transparent bulkhead panels that allow natural light into the basement;
- two rows of regularly spaced, wood double-hung windows at the second and third floor levels in the two corner facades;
- upper pressed-metal cornice that extends the full width of the two corner facades and the lower pressed metal cornices that define the storefronts;
- pressed-metal peaked pediment over the main floor entrance doors;
- 11 metre flagpole.