Bay Building (Montreal)

The Bay Building (originally the Henry Morgan Building; French: Maison Morgan) is a department store on Saint Catherine Street West in downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was designed by John Pierce Hill for Henry Morgan, and opened in 1891. It was the flagship store of the Morgan's department store chain, was acquired by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1960, and was converted to a regional The Bay flagship store in 1960. The store was rebranded to Hudson's Bay in 2013, and slated to include a Saks Fifth Avenue store by 2018, however, these plans were indefinitely postponed. It is one of six locations tentatively spared from the creditor protection and liquidation filed by HBC in March 2025.^[1] However, on April 23, 2025 due to court rulings deeming it "low probability" to find a buyer to keep the remaining six stores afloat, HBC announced liquidation and permeant closure of all Hudson's Bay stores including the Montreal Hudson's Bay building and the remaining 12 HBC stores in the province of Quebec which started on Friday April 25, 2025 and closed on June 1, 2025.^[2][3]

Bay Building
Exterior of the Bay Building (2017)
Former names	Henry Morgan Building (French: Maison Morgan)
General information
Status	Open
Type	Department store
Architectural style	Neo-Romanesque
Location	585 Saint Catherine Street West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Coordinates	45.5042°N 73.5693°W / 45.5042; -73.5693
Current tenants	—
Year(s) built	1889–1891
Opened	1891
Renovated	1923 1964
Client	Henry Morgan
Owner	Hudson's Bay Company
Technical details
Floor area	60,850 m2 (655,000 sq ft) of selling space
Design and construction
Architect(s)	John Pierce Hill
Other information
Public transit access	McGill

The store was accessible to the Montreal Metro via McGill station, for which two entrances are located on Union Avenue.

History

1891–1972: Morgan's

Exterior of the Henry Morgan Building (circa 1890)

Built from 1889 to 1891 to a design by the American architect John Pierce Hill (1849–1920),^[4] the four-storey Neo-Romanesque building was constructed from imported Scottish Old Red Sandstone for Morgan's department store,^[5] which HBC acquired in 1960. The site had previously been occupied by terrace-type townhouses along Saint Catherine, Union and Alymer,^[6] built with stones from the ruins of the 1849 Parliament Building,^[7] including the former home of Dr. William Hales Hingston,^[7] mayor of Montreal from 1875 to 1877, at the southwest corner.

The building was modified in 1923 (eight-storey Beaux-Arts style addition clad with red stone to match the original store) and 1964 (eight-storey modernist annex along De Maisonneuve Boulevard).^[8] The later addition is mostly windowless, with windows only on ground level and in four arch features along De Maisonneuve and Union.

1972–2025: Hudson's Bay

While the Morgan's stores in Ontario were converted to the Hudson's Bay Company nameplate in 1960 and rebranded to The Bay in 1965, the Morgan's stores in Quebec retained their original name until 1972.

HBC announced plans to renovate Hudson's Bay Montreal Downtown to accommodate a 18,580-square-metre (200,000 sq ft) Saks Fifth Avenue facing De Maisonneuve Boulevard in 2016. The project was expected to be completed by fall 2018, but plans had been shelved by that February.

See also

• Phillips Square, located south of the store
• Promenades Cathédrale, connected underground with the store
• Hudson's Bay Queen Street, flagship store in Toronto
• Hudson's Bay Vancouver Downtown, flagship store in Vancouver