Before Victoria Island became crowded with modern towers, luxury offices and the rising presence of Eko Atlantic, one building stood out near the old Bar Beach corridor. It was IMB Plaza, the former headquarters associated with International Merchant Bank, a glass corporate landmark that became part of Lagos’ late twentieth century business memory.
The building stood at the corner of Ahmadu Bello Way and Akin Adesola Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. Its position gave it unusual visibility. It was close to Bar Beach, one of the most recognisable public coastal spaces in Lagos, and it faced a part of the city that would later be transformed by major land reclamation and coastal defence works.
IMB Plaza was remembered not only because of the bank behind it, but also because of its appearance. The building’s mirrored glass, strong geometric form and pyramidal profile made it different from many other office buildings of its time. It carried the confidence of an era when Nigerian financial institutions wanted their headquarters to communicate status, ambition and modernity.
For many who knew Lagos in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, IMB Plaza belonged to the visual memory of Victoria Island. It stood near a coastline strongly associated with Bar Beach, before the Atlantic frontage was reshaped into one of the most ambitious urban development zones in West Africa.
The Building Behind the Name
IMB Plaza was linked to International Merchant Bank, a major name from Nigeria’s merchant banking era. The building served for years as the headquarters of the defunct bank and became one of the most familiar office landmarks around the Victoria Island seafront.
The building is commonly placed in the mid 1980s, with 1985 often cited as the year it opened or became publicly prominent. Some project descriptions refer to its presence on the Lagos seafront from 1984, so the safest historical phrasing is to describe it as a mid 1980s landmark.
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Its architecture helped it survive in public memory long after the bank’s own name faded from everyday business life. At a time when Victoria Island was becoming the commercial face of Lagos, IMB Plaza added a bold corporate image to the skyline. It was not the tallest building in the city, but it had a recognisable silhouette, and that made it memorable.
The glass appearance gave the building a sense of modernity. It belonged to the period when Lagos was expanding as a financial centre and when banks used prominent headquarters to announce their place in the city’s economy. IMB Plaza stood as part of that visual language, a building that made the ambitions of the banking age visible from the street and from the seafront.
The Bank That Disappeared Into Consolidation
The story of IMB Plaza cannot be separated from the history of Nigerian banking. International Merchant Bank no longer exists as the same independent institution associated with the building. Its later institutional trail belongs to the wider banking consolidation that reshaped Nigeria’s financial sector in the 2000s.
Nigeria’s banking reforms forced many banks to merge, recapitalise or disappear into stronger institutions. IMB became part of the chain of banking changes that later involved FinBank and First City Monument Bank. In 2011, FinBank and FCMB signed a merger agreement. In 2012, FCMB completed its acquisition of FinBank, and FCMB’s corporate history records the acquisition of FinBank in February 2012 and the later merger in October 2012.
This means the building outlived the bank identity that gave it its name. In that sense, IMB Plaza became a stronger monument in memory than the institution itself. The bank disappeared into Nigeria’s restructuring story, but the building remained visible enough to keep the old name alive in Lagos conversation.
What Happened to IMB Plaza
The former IMB Plaza was renovated, reconstructed, expanded and renamed Number One Lagos. Its original banking identity disappeared, and its older architectural appearance was significantly changed, but the property continued into a new commercial life.
The transformation of the former IMB Plaza involved a redesign of the building’s façade, improvements to the reception areas, a more efficient floor plan and an increase in lettable office space. The renovation was connected to Green Eagle Realty, with Chapman Taylor preparing the new design and Craneburg Construction serving as the main contractor.
Number One Lagos is recorded as a seven floor office property on Victoria Island. The renovated development was completed in June 2021. It now stands as a modern office address, while still carrying the memory of the former IMB Plaza that once defined that corner of Victoria Island.
This is why the story of the building is better understood as transformation, not disappearance. IMB Plaza lost its old name, old institutional identity and much of its original look, but it was folded into the new commercial landscape of Lagos.
From Bar Beach to Eko Atlantic
The change around the building was just as dramatic as the change to the building itself. IMB Plaza once belonged to a Victoria Island landscape strongly associated with Bar Beach. For decades, Bar Beach was one of the most famous coastal spaces in Lagos. It was a place of leisure, memory, danger and public life, a shoreline loved by many but also threatened by erosion and ocean surges.
That seafront changed through the Eko Atlantic project. The former Bar Beach coastline was reshaped by land reclamation, coastal engineering and sea defence works. Eko Atlantic emerged as a new coastal city built on land reclaimed from the sea, with the Great Wall of Lagos serving as a major protective structure against coastal erosion and Atlantic flooding.
The important distinction is that IMB Plaza itself became Number One Lagos, while the old Bar Beach coastal environment around it was transformed by the Eko Atlantic project. Today, Number One Lagos stands opposite the new Eko Atlantic district, facing a very different urban frontier from the Bar Beach landscape older Lagosians remember.
The building’s view changed with the city. What was once a seafront setting tied to Bar Beach became part of a new corridor of offices, private development, reclaimed land and high value real estate. In that change, the history of IMB Plaza became connected to a larger story about Lagos and its relationship with the Atlantic.
A Building Changed by a Changing City
IMB Plaza captures several chapters of Lagos history in one building. It speaks to the merchant banking era, when financial institutions wanted buildings that carried authority and confidence. It speaks to the consolidation of Nigerian banking, when older names disappeared into mergers and acquisitions. It also speaks to the transformation of Victoria Island, where old coastal memories gave way to reclaimed land, private development and new commercial ambition.
The building also shows how Lagos often handles memory. The city does not always preserve landmarks in their original form. Sometimes it renames them. Sometimes it changes their façades. Sometimes it expands them and gives them a new commercial purpose. That is what happened to IMB Plaza. It did not survive untouched, but it survived through transformation.
Its old mirrored identity may no longer dominate the seafront the way it once did, but the story remains important. The building’s journey from IMB Plaza to Number One Lagos mirrors the journey of Victoria Island itself, from a coastal business district beside Bar Beach to a modern commercial zone facing Eko Atlantic.
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Why the Story Still Matters
The history of IMB Plaza matters because buildings carry more than concrete, steel and glass. They carry the memory of institutions, industries, neighbourhoods and eras. IMB Plaza carried the name of a bank that no longer exists in its old form. It carried the image of a coastline that has been remade. It carried the ambition of a city always pushing toward the next stage of growth.
Its story is not only about loss. It is about adaptation. IMB Plaza lost its original name, original banking identity and much of its old seafront context. But it became part of a new Lagos, under a new name, with a new commercial life.
Number One Lagos now stands where the memory of IMB Plaza continues. It is a reminder that Lagos does not always remove the past completely. Sometimes the past remains inside the present, covered by new glass, new tenants, new ownership and new urban ambition.
Author’s Note
IMB Plaza reminds us that Lagos history is not always a story of total disappearance. The former International Merchant Bank headquarters lost its old name, its old banking identity and the Bar Beach setting that once framed it, but it was not erased from the city’s memory. It was renovated, expanded and renamed Number One Lagos, becoming part of the same changing Victoria Island that turned the old seafront into a new commercial frontier. Its story shows how memory in Lagos often survives through transformation, with old landmarks carrying their past into new forms of business, architecture and urban life.
References
The Guardian Nigeria, “Landmark IMB Plaza up for grabs with ₦3.5 billion guide price,” 27 June 2016.
Chapman Taylor, “Work begins on the reconstruction and renovation of Number One Lagos in Nigeria,” 16 April 2018.
Estate Intel, “Number One,” project database, formerly IMB Plaza, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Estate Intel, “Renovation, Number One, Formerly IMB Plaza, Corner of Akin Adesola Street and Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos.”
Reuters, “Nigeria’s FinBank, FCMB sign merger deal,” 15 July 2011.
Reuters, “Nigeria’s FCMB completes FinBank buyout,” 10 February 2012.
FCMB, “Our History.”
Haskoning, “A new coastal city built on reclaimed land from the sea.”
Eko Atlantic, “Eko Atlantic Facts, Great Wall of Lagos.”
