St Lawrence and Ste Catherine street, 1905. Source: Mccord Museum.
“We have to move forward,” said Catherine Sévigny, the executive committee member responsible for culture, about the committee’s decision to give the Quadrilatère Saint-Laurent the green light last Thursday (La Presse). “This is the end of what some call ‘immobility’ on these projects.”
Yet it was only last month that the Office de consultation publique de Montréal called for this developper to “slow down”on this project. The OCPM report sent the developer back to the drawing board to rethink project’s treatment of a National historic site and the relevance of the building’s proposed usage – mostly office space – within the performing arts district.
In the world of real-estate sales and concrete-pouring, a public consultation process may indeed seem like inaction. But it is meant to ensure that our city’s rules regarding urban planning and heritage preservation are only bent when the outcome is seen as positive and relevant by those who will be touched by the development.
Unfortunately, the executive committee’s decision only re-inforces the perception that public consultation does nothing but uselessly stall development. What is the point of a lengthy consultation process if the recommendations are going to be ignored once again?
“Je suis surprise de voir le projet adopté par le comité exécutif alors qu’aucun nouveau plan ou proposition architecturale n’ont été resoumis,” said Phyllis Lambert, fonder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
Lambert joined forces with Culture Montréal, Héritage Montréal, Club Soda, and Le Monument-National to criticize the city’s dismissiveness towards their own democratic consultation process in a press release yesterday.
The city claims that the development agreement signed with the SDA responds to some of the concerns raised during the public consultation.
On Boul Saint-Laurent, the Quadrilatère’s architecture must be modified to preserve the volume as well as the facades of the historic buildings. Commercial activities on two stories should animate the Main into the evening (although it seems there will still be no place for night-life and no show-spaces to replace the 4 venues will be lost).
The city and the promoter have also promised to work together in restoring desolate Clark street. They will favour the establishment of “emerging” businesses and social economy along Clark. (But does that mean chain stores for the bulk of the Quadrilatère?).
Despite the changes that must be drawn into the plans to meet the city’s conditions, the city reiterated that the project will be completed in 3 years, a timeline that the OCPM has called hasty and unrealistic.
The city’s press release also confirms that existing businesses that have been established for decades within this heritage site could be expropriated if they refuse to accept the SDA’s offers.
Image: Clark street, which has long been the “butt-end” of Saint-Laurent’s businesses, is to receive badly-needed attention from the city and the developer.
Many comments on this blog have noted that the Lower Main is sorely in need of investment and the photo above certainly highlights the point. Yet after decades of neglect, why rush to embrace the first half-baked proposition that comes to the table? With the crystallization of the Quartier des Spectacles and plenty of new arts-oriented development already changing the character of the neighbourhood, new life is on the way in. The executive committee has also approved the SDA’s Édifice Le Parallèle, a cultural centre which will be built atop the Saint-Laurent metro exit.
Is the Quadrilatère really the only chance we’ll get for this legendary strip of the Main?
10 comments
What a shame. The delightful St-Laurent Métro exit building will be gone. It is one of the last temporary buildings of the initial Métro system left (There is another at Place-des-Arts), and unlike the others, it sports some interesting details that make it reminiscent of japanese architecture.
>Is the Quadrilatère really the only chance we’ll get for this legendary strip of the Main?
uh, money talks.
Don’t ever forget this first rule of civic planning.
Especially in Montreal!
The Executive Committee needs to be expropriated, demolished, and replaced with an open concept that reflects the ideas of the people who live and work in the city. “Slowness” is just a political word that means the developers are anxious to get going (making profits). Maybe we need to go a step further by making applications public instead of by private lobbying (wining and dining). It is becoming increasingly popular in other cities to have competitions for projects that can be publicly reviewed. Montreal is one of the “oldest” cities in North America in terms of architectural heritage and we desperately need to have leaders who want to preserve our cultural urbanscapes as well as meet the demands of a new era.
Are you kidding about the metro? Of this plan, that is the least worrisome, and the metro currently sticks out as an underdeveloped structure in the middle of a sprawling metropolis, its growth stunted by neglect. I welcome Le Parallèle, it’s a good idea long coming.
Thierry Vandal utilise son pouvoir discrétionnaire pour usurper les argents d’Hydro-Québec pour ensuite les refiler au groupe d’élus de son choix. Une sorte de Robin des Bois qui vole aux pauvres pour enrichir les riches.
Encore cela n’était pas assez car, s’étant fait prendre à son jeu pervers de générosité bien choisie, on met maintenant sur pieds l’ultime passe-droit.
Hydro-Québec deviendra locataire de la SDA (une organisation privée à but non lucratif) qui pourra ensuite, et ce sans droit de regard de la part des contribuables, redistribuer ses profits au cercle de ces élus.
Intouchables, ceux-ci continueront alors de s’enrichir aux dépends des autres.
Hopefully Marc Dufour was being sarcastic here… Tough I can’t quite make up my mind, is he?
So they suddenly decided “slowing down” the project to “revitalize” that block means taking 3 to 5 years to develop a new plan for it– but somehow it also means shutting down every last business currently operating there immediately.
Hmm, way to carry out a “revitalization” project in concert with the businesses of the area!!
It takes some cojones to claim they’re doing this to “revitalize” a block when in fact they’re sucking it of what life it has for years to come.
Remember when the block across the street from the Spectrum was expropriated and emptied out in 2002 for the new concert hall that’s just starting to be built now? That cost more than 7 years of various lost tax revenues, 7 years of lower business for neighboring restaurants and shops, the blight of a number of buildings sitting vacant and lifeless for 7 years … Some revitalization!
To read the Executive Committee members’ statements, you’d think the current block in question is already completely vacant and that they are heroically pushing past the naysayers with their actions to finally bring it back to life…
They would never admit this, but their actions prove they’ve decided any new plan for the area MUST NOT INCLUDE the 100-year old local institution, the Montreal Poolroom; the nearly 120-year-old pristine cabaret space Café Cléopatra; the oldest Mideast food market in Canada, Main Importations; the remaining nightclub (a favourite of Montreal Canadiens players among other moneyed clientele) Club Opéra; and the Saints showbar (still housed along with the Seduction boutique in a rather beautiful and increasingly rare Art Deco-style corner building, built in the 1940s as Woolworth’s flagship downtown store).
None of this really makes sense — unless you know that the promoter involved is a close friend (and campaign contributor) of the Mayor, and that this friend is married to the director of the Théatre du Nouveau Monde next door to this block (who’s made it clear she doesn’t think the current nightclubs or ANY hot dog joint has any place in the area’s future.) Mix in some past fraud convictions among those involved and the lack of any open competition for this plum development contract, and you have all that is horribly wrong with this city in a nutshell.
I’m sure the Executive Committee hoped their Thursday motion would go unnoticed over the weekend and would sail quietly through Monday night’s council vote, but luckily a lot of Montrealers did notice it, and should be making some noise about this on Monday …
There are historic, still-operating, and thriving businesses running here – this plan and its adoption by the City boggles the mind. Leave the St. Laurent side of this block alone. If they want to develop the Clark side, great. I don’t see the point of this “mega” project destroying what is organic and working well here: the gritty-ness is what makes it interesting.
I don’t get the idea that Marc was being facetious, but that édicule was originally built as a temporary structure, and it is sad indeed to see the vacant lot at the corner of St-Laurent and boulevard de Maisonneuve, atop a métro station and so central for cultural amenities.
It is criminal not to preserve the historic but rundown buildings along St-Laurent south of Ste-Catherine; they do need sprucing up but not elimination or façadism.
Good point Maria — instead of being against the project, we should propose they use a fraction of the $170 million dollars to properly renovate the buildings on that block and let cultural entrepreneurs rent them out and bring them back to life.
The block should be treated like the blocks of St. Denis and Crescent on either side of Ste. Catherine St. — human scale, renovated heritage buildings, rooftop and other terrasses — that’s how you get some nightlife and cultural activity in an area, not just here but in any large city.
I don’t believe for a second the developer’s claim that nothing short of a multi-storey office tower can be built downtown without losing money. Someone forgot to tell this to Jacques Villeneuve when he bought and renovated a heritage building on Crescent for his “Newtown” resto-bar a few years ago …
All of this comes to a head tonight at the last council meeting before the election — it starts at 7 p.m. but you have to sign up at 5 p.m. if you want to make a comment or ask a question. It’s at City Hall, Notre Dame just east of St-Urbain, Champ de Mars or Place d’Armes metro …