Work is going ahead at the old CIBC building at 180 Laird Drive with the expectation that an established restaurant and bar will take the location in the near future. A building application which was accepted on August 27, 2014 shows the name Local Public Eatery under the heading for “description”. That’s not where one would expect to find the applicant’s name on a City permit but it
is the name hanging over five trendy dining and drinking establishments in B.C., Alberta and Toronto’s Liberty Village. The Toronto
Local says on its website that its “kind of like your living room, with better food and people to serve you beer, fanatical about craft beer and rotating new selections, passionate about great food and the best ingredients.” Back at 180 Laird Drive however workers at the old bank building say they’ve been told the tenant will be a Joey restaurant. Joey, as dining cognoscente will know, is a lush, chandeliered and inventive dining place with valet parking at several locations here. Curiously, Joey also has a very strong western presence and its owner, a dynamic businessman named Jeffery Fuller, is headquartered in Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver. It has some locations in Washington State too. The little two storey building on Laird is smaller than many Joey restaurants. It was built in the heyday of industrial Leaside by the Imperial Bank of Canada before it merged in 1960 with the Canadian Bank of Commerce to form the CIBC. Many changes are required to fit it out as a restaurant. One document at City Hall reveals that a “retractable cover for a second floor patio” is under review. In any case, the large interests behind the plan are not not readily available to explain just what name will go on the building when it is done. The owners, First Capital Realty, did not respond to an inquiry by post time.
Photos from top: 180 Laird as seen in 2012 before the bank moved to Leaside Village, construction on the east face of the building now and the elegant Imperial Bank crest over the front door.
