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