The commodious building at the northwest corner of 103rd Street and 102nd Avenue stands as part of one of the most ambitious downtown revitalization projects of the 1970s. “Boardwalk Market” says the sign atop the building, a vestige of its 1971 revitalization when it was joined with the adjacent Revillon Building fronting 104th Street.

But the building’s place in Edmonton history actually goes back more than 100 years. It was constructed in 1910 as a warehouse for Ross Brothers Hardware, a venture started in 1883 by Fred and James Ross.

The brothers operated the town’s very first hardware store on Jasper Avenue, and as the city grew, business prospered. They diversified from retail into wholesale, and hired local architect Edward Collis Hopkins to draw the plans for a new headquarters that would serve their growing needs.

Hopkins chose to design the building in the Second Renaissance Revival style, with arcades on the second and third storey of five round-arched windows, and extensive use of stone for trim. The series of arches down the 103rd Street facade gives the impression of a Roman viaduct.

The main entrance was framed by an entablature below the third arched window, marked by a bay window projecting out from the second storey. A name plate above the entrance read: “Ross Bros. Limited.” Stone was used to accent the arches, and brick corbelling (stepping) provided a transition from the wall to the cornice at the top of the facade by gradually pushing out the wall.

The four-storey building measured 130 feet long and 80 feet wide, constructed atop a full concrete basement by local contractors Pheasey and Batson for between $60,000 and $100,000 (accounts differ). A story published in a local paper early in 1910 reported that excavation had begun on the “semi-fireproof” building, and it was to be “fitted with two elevators.”

Another article in the May 20, 1910 edition of the Edmonton Bulletin newspaper, itemized some of the hefty materials being used in the construction. “The beams and posts are of British Columbia fir; the floor is double planked; the partitions are all of steel and plaster. Thus ample precaution is taken against the spread of fire.”

Those safeguards included fireproof vaults on the first and second floors, and off-site storage. “All inflammable wares will, however, be kept clear of the building, in a vault especially erected for that purpose,” the article continued.

In addition to two electric elevators, the building also boasted “chutes for sliding boxes from the unloading platform to the basement, and from the packing to the shipping rooms. A trolley from the unloading platform will run all over the ground floor.”

Weighing of goods was facilitated by Fairbanks scales sunk into the floor. “Steel pits, sunk into the floor ... enabled long, unwieldy, steel rods to be handled with ease from the first floor.”

The warehouse commenced operations in early 1911. The following year, Ross Brothers was bought out by Marshall-Wells Hardware Company of Duluth, Minnesota, but Fred Ross retained ownership of the building. He leased it to Marshall-Wells until 1919, and then in 1923, J.H. Ashdown Hardware Company became tenants.

Ashdown purchased the warehouse in 1928 and launched an ambitious expansion, doubling its size. The $110,000 project was completed by Edmonton contractors Poole Construction.

Local architects Herbert Alton Magoon and George Heath Macdonald prepared plans that replicated the earlier Hopkins motif, with five new window arches added to the north of the original five. After the Second World War, another expansion added four more window arches to the north, bringing the total to 14.

During the 1928 work, an elevator penthouse was constructed and adorned with the company’s trademark – the letter “A” in a white diamond. Ashdown Hardware remained at the location until 1971, a remarkable 48 years.

That year, work commenced renovating the building to house restaurants, offices and stores. A wooden plank boardwalk was constructed around the building, and it was joined with the Revillon Building to the west, creating one of Edmonton’s best examples of adaptive reuse completed to that time.

Now, 100 years after it was built, the Ross Brothers Hardware Building survives as the largest and best example of the Second Renaissance Revival style anywhere in the city.