The station, constructed in the Beaux Arts style, consists of a 43-metre (141 ft) clock tower and a three-storey main terminal.

The main terminal gallery has an 11.6-metre (38 ft) high ceiling supported by marble-clad walls and with elegant bronze suspended light fixtures.

The station was designed by Darling and Pearson and built in 1916 by P. Lyall & Sons Construction Company to service the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) line running across Toronto.

On September 9, 1915, a time capsule was entombed in the 1.7 tonnes (3,700 lb) cornerstone laid by the then mayor of Toronto, Tommy Church.

A new capsule was buried in the space formerly occupied by the old one, and it included items from September 9, 2015 – issues of the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail and National Post, a copy of the September issue of Toronto Life magazine, and the current edition of the LCBO Food & Drink guide were included.

Also buried were a BlackBerry and an iPhone, a modern map of Toronto and a few bottles of spirits (in homage to the current use of the building as an LCBO outlet).

[8] Though the former beauty of the station's exterior could be surmised even in its most downtrodden days, much of the station's elegant interior was hidden behind boardings put up by Brewers' Retail and the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO, the government-owned alcohol retailer which had moved into the southern part of the terminal building in 1940) until the building was restored in 2004 by Woodcliffe Corporation.

The first order of business during the restoration of the tower was the removal of approximately 4,000 kilograms (8,800 lb) of desiccated pigeon droppings that had accumulated in its base.

The original movements of the clocks themselves were almost completely recovered and restored; now, with the help of GPS signals, they display the time with much greater precision and reliability.

[11] Though it now serves as the Summerhill LCBO outlet, the largest liquor store in Canada, freight trains still run behind the station.

During restoration, to break up train-induced vibrations that might otherwise rattle bottles and 'bruise' more expensive merchandise, the concrete floor was impregnated with rubber from discarded automobile tires.

The concourse, which is still in the main building but acts as a transition to the area underneath the tracks, has a vaulted ceiling broken in the three separate elements.

This is topped with another section that is more ornate, yet lighter, detailed with two columns to make three bays, and finally the actual clock and roof.

The clock tower is modeled after the Campanile of St. Mark's in Venice, which had collapsed and was being rebuilt shortly before the construction of the station began.

The second tier becomes much lighter with the intercolumnation and having the stone wall set a distance behind the columns to give it the depth needed to create a sense of openness.