Description of Historic Place

The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is a Municipal Heritage Property occupying 1 1/2 civic lots on Main Street in the Town of Radville. The property features a two-storey, wood-frame building erected in 1911.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce resides in its long association with the economic and commercial life of Radville. The bank has provided financial services to Radville and district from the same prominent Main Street location for over 90 years, first as the Canadian Bank of Commerce, then, following a 1961 merger with the Imperial Bank of Canada, as the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Built in 1911, the year of Radville’s incorporation, the bank is one of the town’s oldest buildings, housing its longest-serving business.

Further heritage value lies in the building’s architecture. The bank is a fine example of the numerous prefabricated buildings erected by the Bank of Commerce in western Canada during the early years of the twentieth century. As towns sprung up along expanding rail networks, banks competed to be the first to establish a branch in the new settlements. The use of prefabricated buildings manufactured by the British Columbia Mills, Timber and Trading Company allowed the Bank of Commerce to quickly erect substantial buildings in frontier areas where local supplies of labour and materials were limited. The prefabricated buildings also provided a way for the Bank to economically render the architectural styles typical of its large stone and masonry city branches in the more modest wood-frame structures built in small communities. The Radville branch’s Georgian Revival composition and Edwardian Classical detailing project a conservative image of prosperity, stability and security, qualities befitting a bank. To this day, the bank remains one of the finest and most imposing buildings on Radville’s principal street.

Source:

Town of Radville Bylaw No. 9-84.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce resides in the following character-defining elements:
-elements that speak to the bank’s prominence in the community, including the building’s location on its original Main Street lot;
-elements related to the building’s bank function, including the ground floor arrangement of banking hall, offices and original vault;
-elements related to the building’s prefabricated design, such as walls constructed of interlocking laminated panels covered on the exterior of the building by horizontal wood siding;
-elements that are characteristic of the Bank of Commerce’s early-twentieth century small-town bank buildings, including separate residential quarters on the upper floor; and period construction materials, such as plaster walls, hardwood mouldings and flooring; painted burlap wainscot in the banking hall and offices; and the wooden staircase with balustrade leading to the second floor;
-elements expressing the bank’s Georgian Revival-influenced architecture, including the building’s rectangular form, symmetrical façade and hip roof; the centrally-positioned entrance topped by a segmented transom window and curved pediment supported by decorative pilasters; the eaves and dentils; the patterning of the window openings; and the window mullions and muntins;
-elements of the building’s Edwardian Classical detailing, including the curve-roofed dormer on the front of the building, pilasters flanking the entranceway, and the massive corner pilasters with capitals.