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Overview

This commission for the Kelly Building, a large Downtown Edmonton business block, was designed by architect William Doty Van Siclen, who relocated from the Pacific Northwest to Edmonton, AB, c. 1912. Van Siclen moved to Edmonton in about 05/1912 to work on a large commission for the Royal Alexandra Hotel. (See "Trade Notes, Personal Factors," Pacific Builder and Engineer, 05/18/1912, p. 421.)

Building History

Architect William Doty Van Siclen (1865-1951) designed this building for John Kelly, a one-time blacksmith, who went on to become a real estate developer and alderman in Edmonton, AB. This building cost $100,000 to erect and was built by the local general contractors, Read, MacDonald, and Brewster. This firm had office space in the Tegler Block in Edmonton, located just to the north of the Kelly Block, in 1913.

The department store owner James Ramsey leased space in Kelly's building for his Ramsey Department Store in Downtown Edmonton, and gradually expanded the Kelly Building and a neighborhing one between 1911 and 1926. Van Siclen lived in Edmonton, AB, between about 1912 and 1918, and so may have been involved in one of Ramsey's periodic building expansions. John Kelly (1852-1934) left the frozen clime of Alberta for California in the 1920s.

In 1926, Ramsey commissioned the erection of a building to the west of the Kelly Building, calling it modestly, the "Ramsey Building." By 1928, Ramsey sold his department store to Eaton's of Toronto, ON. Alberta's Provincial Government purchased the Kelly-Ramsey Building during the 1940s.

In 2009, the Kelly and Ramsey Buildings burned due to an arson fire. The facades of the two buildings were peeled away c. 2013 and reapplied to the southeast corner of a much larger, 551,208-square-foot skyscraper, the Enbridge Center, completed in 2016. The website of the mechanical and electrical engineering firm, MCW, said of the Enbridge project: "At a cost of $180 million dollars, this new 27 storey building houses two (2) floors of retail space, 23 floors of office space, a two (2) story mechanical/services penthouse and five (5) levels of underground parking. The first four (4) floors of the building forms a pedestal for the tower and will wear a carefully reassembled brick façade catalogued and preserved from the original buildings." (See MCW.com, "Pangman Development Kelly Ramsey Tower and Enbridge Centre," accessed 07/26/2023.)

Demolition

The adjoining Kelly and Ramsey Buildings were razed c. 2013, save for their facades.

PCAD id: 11403