Royal Bank Plaza

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Royal Bank Plaza in downtown Toronto

Royal Bank Plaza in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is the headquarters of the Royal Bank of Canada. The building occupies a full block, bordered by Bay, Front and Wellington Streets in the financial district.

Built to be the new main office of the Royal Bank after its decision to move its centre of operations from Place Ville Marie in Montreal to Toronto in the late 1970s, Royal Bank Plaza consists of two office buildings: the South Tower and the North Tower. The South Tower, a skyscraper, is the taller of the two at 180 m; The North Tower has a height of 112 m. The exteriors of the structures are largely covered with glass; together they have more than 14,000 windows. Each of these windows is coated with a layer of 24 karat (100%) gold. At a cost of about $70 per window, the total value of gold in the windows is over $1,000,000 but, due to the manufacturing technique used to make the glass, the gold is unrecoverable. The gold gives the windows a distinctive colour. Gold was used as an insulator to reduce heating costs.

In addition to office space and the Toronto Main Branch of the Royal Bank, Royal Bank Plaza also contains a shopping concourse which is part of the PATH network Path, linking directly to the TD Centre as well as Union Station, BCE Place and the Fairmount Royal York. The concourse merchants mall and tower lobbies underwent extensive renovations between 2005 and 2007.

The building was originally constructed with a large atrium opening above the main banking hall, but in the 1990s a trading floor was added, closing off the open space.

The bank maintains a presence in a number of towers in the downtown core, including 20 King Street next to Scotia Plaza. This smaller building near King and Yonge Streets is called the Royal Bank Building.