The store is accessible to the Montreal Metro via McGill station, for which an entrance is located on Union Avenue.

Built from 1889 to 1891 to a design by the American architect John Pierce Hill (1849–1920),[1] the four-storey Neo-Romanesque building was constructed from imported Scottish Old Red Sandstone for Morgan's department store,[2] which HBC acquired in 1960.

The site had previously been occupied by terrace-type townhouses along Saint Catherine, Union and Alymer,[3] built with stones from the ruins of the 1849 Parliament Building,[4] including the former home of Dr. William Hales Hingston,[4] mayor of Montreal from 1875 to 1877, at the southwest corner.

[5] The later addition is mostly windowless, with windows only on ground level and in four arch features along De Maisonneuve and Union.

HBC announced plans to renovate Hudson's Bay Montreal Downtown to accommodate a 18,580-square-metre (200,000 sq ft) Saks Fifth Avenue facing De Maisonneuve Boulevard in 2016.