World Exchange Plaza
Encyclopedia
Downtown Ottawa
Downtown Ottawa is the central area of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Like other downtowns it is the commercial and economic centre of the city. It is sometimes referred to as the Central Business District and contains Ottawa's financial district. It is bordered by the Ottawa River to the north, the...
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...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, 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...
. The first phase of the project was completed in 1991. It covers an entire city block between Metcalfe and O'Connor south of Queen Street. The twenty-storey building was unusual in Ottawa for its visual flair. The eastern side was marked by a large plaza modeled after the Roman
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
Coliseum. The building opened in the middle of a deep recession and initially had trouble being filled. The 1990s boom solved this and work began on a second tower, which was completed in 2001. This second tower greatly increased the available office space, but also made the structure far less visually arresting.
The two towers hold offices for a variety of companies, including Deloitte, Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers ....
, Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG), CTV
CTV television network
CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
, The Manning Centre for Building Democracy, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, Accenture
Accenture
Accenture plc is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company headquartered in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. It is the largest consulting firm in the world and is a Fortune Global 500 company. As of September 2011, the company had more than 236,000 employees across...
, Telus
TELUS
Telus is a national telecommunications company in Canada that provides a wide range of telecommunications products and services including internet access, voice, entertainment, video, and satellite television. The company is based in Burnaby, British Columbia, part of Greater Vancouver...
, EDS, Ogilvy Renault
Ogilvy Renault
Ogilvy Renault LLP was a Canadian law firm with 450 members in offices in Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, Toronto, Calgary and London, England. Ogilvy Renault offered services in the areas of business law, litigation and ADR, employment and labour law and intellectual property...
, RBC Dominion Securities
RBC Dominion Securities
RBC Dominion Securities is the brand used by Royal Bank of Canada for full service brokerage services primarily in Canada. It forms part of RBC's Wealth Management division. Established in Toronto in 1901, it originally focused on government and municipal but diversified into war bonds during...
, TD Canada Trust
TD Canada Trust
TD Canada Trust is the personal, small business and commercial banking operation of the Toronto-Dominion Bank in Canada. TD Canada Trust offers a range of financial services and products to more than 10 million Canadian customers through more than 1,100 branches and 2,600 ATM Green Machines...
, MTS Allstream, and CPAC. Atop of one tower is the TD logo and atop the other is the BLG logo.
The World Exchange Plaza 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...
is located in the base of the structure. It is home to a number of stores and an Empire Theatres
Empire Theatres
Empire Theatres Limited is the second-largest movie theatre chain in Canada, and the only major circuit operating in Atlantic Canada. A subsidiary of Empire Company Ltd., the family-owned parent of the Sobeys supermarket chain presently owns and operates 51 locations in 8 of 10 provinces, from...
movie theatre, one of the only cinemas in the downtown core. The mall is also noted for the life size models of narwhal
Narwhal
The narwhal, Monodon monoceros, is a medium-sized toothed whale that lives year-round in the Arctic. One of two living species of whale in the Monodontidae family, along with the beluga whale, the narwhal males are distinguished by a characteristic long, straight, helical tusk extending from their...
s and belugas that hang from the ceiling.