Ellis Block, Columbia Street

The Ellis Block, Columbia Street is significant for its contribution to the consistent and distinctive built form of Columbia Street, which dates from between 1898 and 1913, when New Westminster was the major centre of commerce and industrial output for the booming Fraser Valley area. The first structure of importance on this site was the Bank of British Columbia Building, 1887. Destroyed by the Great Fire, the foundations of this block were used for a replacement building built in 1899; an adjacent commercial block on Front Street - also called the Ellis Block - was constructed at the same time. The two Ellis Blocks were constructed for property owners Thomas D. Ellis and L.D. Ellis.

Additionally, the site is valued for its associations with the Bank of B.C., which played an important role in the early development of the province. The Bank of B.C. was established in New Westminster in 1862, and in 1901, amalgamated with the Canadian Bank of Commerce, which was located here until their new building next door was completed in 1911.

The Ellis Block is also valued as one of the structures in New Westminster designed by architects Francis Mawson Rattenbury (1867-1935) and John Gerhard Tiarks (1867-1901). Although never formally in partnership, they worked in association after New Westminster's Great Fire of 1898, and were commissioned to design four sophisticated structures along Columbia Street, including the two Ellis Blocks, the Hamley Block and the demolished Bank of Montreal building.