List of tallest buildings in Yellowknife


This list of tallest buildings in Yellowknife ranks skyscrapers over tall in the city of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. Yellowknife is the capital of and largest city in the Northwest Territories and the second largest in Northern Canada. As of 2011, the city contains 3 skyscrapers and over, with a further 7 high-rise buildings that exceed in height. The tallest building in the city, and the NWT, is the 17-storey, Centre Square – Northern Heights. This building was constructed in a postmodernist architectural style, representing the city's efforts to add visual interest into the skyline. The second-tallest building in the city is the Watermark Tower, standing at tall with 15 storeys.
Having a population of almost 20,000 people, Yellowknife has a skyline that is disproportionately large, considering its size, population, and location. This is due to Yellowknife's position in a vast resource-rich area in Northern Canada, a region larger than India. More specifically it is the capital of the Northwest Territories which compose a large part of Northern Canada. Yellowknife is the largest city in the Northwest Territories, and, as such, many large businesses such as diamond-mining and iron-mining consortiums are headquartered or have bases in the city. The city acts as a distribution point for many of these resources. Yellowknife is connected to the southern Canadian city of Edmonton via the Yellowknife and Mackenzie Highways.

List of tallest buildings

This list ranks buildings in Yellowknife that stand at least tall, based on CTBUH height measurement standards. This includes spires and architectural details but does not include antenna masts.
RankNameImageHeightFloorsCompletedNotes
1Centre Square – Northern Heights
171996
  • Tallest building in Northern Canada.
  • Third northernmost enclosed mall in North America.
2=Watermark Tower 152003
2=Northwest Tower
121991
4Scotia Centre
111979
5Coast Fraser Tower
141970
6Precambrian Building
111976
7Anderson – Thomson Tower
11–
8Bellanca Building
101973
9Northern United Place10-

Other notable buildings

Con Mine

At the Robertson headframe located at Con Mine was the tallest building in Yellowknife and the Northwest Territories. The headframe which was built in 1977, sat over a mine shaft deep. The headframe was demolished on 29 October 2016.

Explorer Hotel

The Explorer Hotel is located on 49th Avenue in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. It is an eight-storey-tall modernist concrete structure built in the mid-1970s. Located atop an outcrop overlooking downtown, the hotel is one of the most prominent buildings in the city, and claims to be the largest hotel in Northern Canada; it has also been described as the city's best and grandest. It is owned and operated by Nunastar Properties.

Greenstone Building

The Greenstone Building on Franklin Avenue downtown houses offices of 16 different federal government agencies. Before its completion in 2005, on time and under budget, those offices had been scattered in different locations. In 2007 it was certified LEED Gold by the Canadian Green Building Council for its environmental sustainability; among other features it generates some of its own electricity through building-integrated photovoltaics. It was the first building in the Canadian North to receive LEED certification of any level.

Mackenzie Place

Mackenzie Place, known locally as the High Rise, is a 17-storey building located in Hay River on the south side of Great Slave Lake. Although no accurate height is known it is sometimes called the tallest building in the NWT. An estimated height of is given for the building that was completed in 1975 and was until the building of Centre Square – Northern Heights in 1996 the tallest building for 40 years. Unlike Yellowknife there are no other buildings in Hay River of any height so it dominates the skyline and is visible from away.

Northwest Territories Legislative Building

The Northwest Territories Legislative Building is the home of the Government of the Northwest Territories. The most recent building was built in 1993 and commenced usage in 1994. The Legislative Assembly has used many permanent and temporary facilities throughout its history.
The current building is two stories tall with two round halls, the Great Hall and the Caucus Room. It is located in Yellowknife, and overlooks Frame Lake. It was designed by Ferguson Simek Clark/Pin Matthews in association with Matsuzaki Wright Architects, and landscape architect Cornelia Oberlander.

Timeline of tallest buildings

Nunavut and Yukon

Of the three northern territories, the Northwest Territories is the only one that has buildings over tall.
The tallest building in Nunavut is the tall Tukturjuk Tower in Iqaluit.
The tallest building in Yukon is the tall Mah's Point condos in Whitehorse. The city of Whitehorse had, for many years, a by-law restricting the height of buildings to. The by-law was changed in 2012 allowing for 8 storeys and a height of.

Maps