299 Queen Street West - History and Architecture

History and Architecture

The five-storey building was originally constructed as the headquarters of the Methodist Church of Canada in 1913 by Burke, Horwood and White. The Methodists joined with two other denominations to form the United Church of Canada in 1925, for which the building served as the headquarters until 1959. By this time the Ryerson Press, originally the publishing arm of the Methodist Church, had grown to occupy the entire building. The building was purchased by CHUM in 1985, and was re-opened in May 1987 as the new headquarters for the company and its various outlets, including Citytv Toronto (which was previously located at 99 Queen St. East).

The building's east wall is decorated with an actual older style news truck seemingly bursting out of the building; the front tires of the truck can be seen spinning from time to time. The truck previously bore the old "CityPulse Live-Eye" decal; has been overhauled with the "CP24 Breaking News" decal following the acquisition by CTVgm.

Previously, the northwest corner of the building used to contain a Speakers' Corner videobooth, where for a dollar anyone could record two minutes of oneself. The booth was removed as part of renovations and upgrades to the MuchMusic studios in 2010 and the space where the video booth was located has since been enclosed and is used as production space for the network.

While the outside facade has been restored and remains intact, the building's interior has been modernized into one of the world's most innovative media complexes. 299 Queen Street West was designed to have no TV studios: the entire building was been rigged for audio and video. The building has been engineered so that public space, working areas, offices, and even the parking lot may all be used as optimal shoot locations. Many television shows produced by the various outlets operating out of the building, such as Citytv's Breakfast Television, CityLine and the former Electric Circus, were filmed live on the ground floor. The ground floor features giant glass sliding partitions so that the building can be open to the street. The annual MuchMusic Video Awards show is held as a street party that takes place in the parking lot, rooftop, as well as Queen and John Streets adjacent to the building.

299 Queen Street West served as the national broadcast headquarters for the 2007 Live Earth concert, with several CTVgm-owned media outlets and personalities collaborating to broadcast the live event nationally for 28 hours. The building also served as the headquarters for CTV's multi-platform coverage of the 32nd Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007, acting as the launching pad of red carpet coverage, galas, film parties, film premieres, festival breaking news, and other related events. Various corporate divisions, such as eTalk, Star!, MuchMusic, MTV Canada, Bravo!, FashionTelevisionChannel and Canada AM, collaborated on the event coverage.

Although acquired by Bell Media together with other CHUM entities, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission required CTVgm to sell Citytv Toronto and four other Citytv stations in Canada to Rogers Media in 2007. Since then, the Citytv signage at the front building was replaced with an eTalk logo; the Citytv logos on the landmark mural behind the Virgin Mobile at Much store were replaced and overhauled with various logos of Bell Media's co-owned television channels, as well as the logo for CTV's entertainment news program eTalk shown one dish; and the main Citytv signage on the building's east façade was replaced with a CTV logo and a private balcony, looking out from the company's boardroom. Citytv Toronto officially moved out of 299 Queen Street West into its new home at 33 Dundas Street East on September 8, 2009.

BNN later moved in to the building on December 6, 2010, and uses the space previously utilized by Citytv's CityNews department and CP24 which moved to the second floor of the building.