222 Jarvis Street
office building in Ontario, Canada
222 Jarvis Street is an office building on Jarvis Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The inverted-pyramid-shaped building contains ten storeys and was completed in 1971.
Constructed of pre-cast concrete skinned in dark brown brick veneer, it was designed in the Brutalist style by architect Maxwell Miller as the head office of Sears Canada, a department store chain. It has 58,336 square metres (627,920 sq ft) of gross floor area.
History
The property was sold in 2007 to the Ontario Realty Corporation, Ontario's publicly owned real estate services agency. At that time, Sears Canada relocated its head office to the Toronto Eaton Centre.
The building was once connected to the adjacent building now known as the Merchandise Building, a former department store warehouse, which has since been converted to loft apartments.
The Government of Ontario chose 222 Jarvis Street as a model to show that older buildings can be retrofitted to significantly reduce a building's carbon footprint. The government expected to spend $100 million on the project, including the installation of a green roof, with the objective of achieving Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold status for the building.
It was renovated to be used as offices for four ministries: Ministry of Government Services (in 2014 this Ministry was split into the Ministry of Government & Consumer Services and the Treasury Board Secretariat), Energy and Infrastructure, Research and Innovation, Economic Development and Trade, and Training, Colleges and Universities.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “222 Jarvis Street” is office building in Ontario, Canada. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Jarvis, Street and office, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “office building in Ontario, Canada” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4631220. Authority coordinates are 43.658, -79.376. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1971, 2007 and 2014.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “222 Jarvis Street”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 222 Jarvis Street primary sources, 222 Jarvis Street archive and Jarvis research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “222 Jarvis Street”?
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- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “222 Jarvis Street” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.