The eighty-foot tower is valued as a symbol of Victoria's enthusiasm for the new age of aviation. At the time, there were plans to turn the Inner Harbour into a seaplane landing facility, and it was confidently predicted that aerial transport would supersede surface transport in the future. Aviation was dramatized by Charles Lindbergh's solo flight from New York to Paris in 1927. The direct model for the Causeway Tower and Beacon was the two billion candlepower Lindbergh Beacon that topped the Palmolive Building in Chicago, dedicated in 1930 by its inventor, Elmer A. Sperry. His beacon was a high-intensity arc lamp searchlight used to mark the new night airmail routes, and a ten million candlepower unit was installed on top of the Causeway Tower in anticipation of increasing seaplane traffic.

The Causeway Tower is additionally significant as a sophisticated essay in Art Deco, displaying the stepped-back massing, vertical emphasis and geometric friezes that were characteristic of the style. The gas station and pumps originally had red pantiled canopies, a nod to the popular Spanish Colonial Revival style that harkened to the free-wheeling California lifestyle popularized in the Hollywood movies of the era. The utilitarian south façade demonstrates the original working nature of the Inner Harbour.

The Causeway Tower & Garage were designed by the Vancouver firm Townley & Matheson, one of the most significant architectural firms in Western Canada and leading practitioners of the new modernist styles. Their best-known project, Vancouver City Hall (1935-36) displays many of the stylistic elements of the earlier Causeway Tower. This progressive structure also demonstrates that in 1931, the residents of Victoria were able to appreciate the addition of a modernist structure alongside the venerable landmarks of an earlier era, symbolizing the acceptance of a new modern vision. The Causeway Tower has been a landmark ever since.