The C.D. Howe Building is an office tower in Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, that is the home of Industry Canada

Industry Canada

Industry Canada is the department of the Government of Canada with responsibility for regional economic development, investment, and innovation/research and development. The department employs 6104 FTEs across Canada....

, the Office of the Auditor General

Auditor General of Canada

The role of the Auditor General of Canada is to aid accountability by conducting independent audits of federal government operations. The Auditor General reports to the House of Commons, not to the government...

 and other smaller tenants. The eleven-story building was opened in 1978. It was named after C. D. Howe

C. D. Howe

Clarence Decatur Howe, PC , generally known as C. D. Howe, was a powerful Canadian Cabinet minister of the Liberal Party. Howe served in the governments of Prime Ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent continuously from 1935 to 1957...

, a noted federal minister in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. It is located at the prominent intersection of Bank Street

Bank Street (Ottawa)

Bank Street is the major north-south road in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It runs south from Wellington Street in downtown Ottawa, south through the neighbourhoods of Centretown, The Glebe, Old Ottawa South, Alta Vista, Hunt Club, and then through the villages of Blossom Park, Leitrim, South...

 and Sparks Street

Sparks Street

Sparks Street is a street in downtown Ottawa, Canada that was converted into an outdoor pedestrian street in 1966, making it the earliest such street or mall in North America....

. The lower levels of the building contain a shopping mall

Shopping mall

A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...

 named 240 Sparks. The most notable element of the building's interior is the amount of greenery and the large waterfall

Waterfall

A waterfall is a place where flowing water rapidly drops in elevation as it flows over a steep region or a cliff.-Formation:Waterfalls are commonly formed when a river is young. At these times the channel is often narrow and deep. When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens...

. The two elevator

Elevator

An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...

 banks contain two storey tall cars that rise in a large atrium that stretches the entire height of the building.

It was built by Olympia and York

Olympia and York

Olympia & York was once a major international property development firm based in Canada. The firm built major financial office complexes like Canary Wharf in London, the World Financial Center in New York City and First Canadian Place in Toronto...

. The federal government sold the land to O&Y for a dollar and signed an agreement to lease the final building for a set rate until 2012.